WAR 12-16-2017-to-12-22-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(299) 11-25-2017-to-12-01-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...2-01-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(300) 12-02-2017-to-12-08-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...2-08-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(301) 12-09-2017-to-12-15-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...2-15-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

==========

I was kind of surprised that the article I posted in the last WoW thread regarding the Russians preparing to break out of the START agreements and deploy 8000 warheads and their delivery systems didn't get any comments...

Russia Sharply Expanding Nuclear Arsenal, Upgrading Underground Facilities
http://freebeacon.com/national-secu...ear-arsenal-upgrading-underground-facilities/
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...*WINDS****of****WAR****&p=6700191#post6700191

====

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.rferl.org/a/nato-russia-missile-accusations-inf-treaty-dispute-escalates/28920865.html

Russia

NATO Levels Missile Accusations Against Moscow, As Treaty Dispute Escalates

Last Updated: December 15, 2017 19:53 GMT
Mike Eckel

WASHINGTON -- NATO has accused Russia of developing a missile system in violation of a key Cold War arms treaty, the latest accusation from the West in a dispute that some fear will lead to the treaty’s demise.

The statement from the alliance, released on December 15, comes days after the United States signaled a tougher stance in its approach toward Moscow and the missile system, which a U.S. official identified publicly for the first time last month.

The statement wasn’t the first time the alliance's main political decision-making body -- the North Atlantic Council-- has weighed in on the dispute over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF). But it was the most forceful to date and followed a briefing that U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis gave to allied defense ministers last month.

"Allies have identified a Russian missile system that raises serious concerns,” the December 15 statement said.

It urged Russia "to address these concerns in a substantial and transparent way, and actively engage in a technical dialogue with the United States.”

“It's the first [North Atlantic Council] statement as such, but allies have been discussing these issues for some time," a NATO official who spoke to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity said.

Signed in 1987, the treaty eliminated an entire class of missiles from Europe and is considered a bedrock agreement for arms control between Washington and Moscow.

Three years ago, Washington publicly accused Moscow of developing a ground-launched cruise missile that fell within the treaty’s prohibitions. Russia has repeatedly rejected the accusations, demanded more information, and leveled its own accusations at U.S. missile-defense systems in Europe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 14 insisted again that Moscow was complying with the INF and accused Washington of trying to set up a way to withdraw from it altogether.

The United States’ European allies have in the past been frustrated that Washington hasn’t shared more technical evidence of Moscow’s violations.

The NATO statement was issued one day after a special technical commission, established under the treaty rules, met to discuss the dispute and other issues related to the INF treaty.

The State Department said in a statement late on December 14 that participants “expressed the view that the INF treaty continues to play an important role in the existing system of international security, nuclear disarmament, and nonproliferation, and that they will work to preserve and strengthen it.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry also issued a statement on December 15 that was a word-for-word translation of the State Department's remarks.

The State Department on December 8 warned that Washington was taking military and economic measures against Moscow, the first announcement of its sort by President Donald Trump's administration, signaling a more determined approach to the treaty dispute.

Late last month, a top White House official for the first time confirmed long-standing suspicions about the type of missile Washington alleged Moscow had deployed.

Christopher Ford, a National Security Council official involved in arms control, identified the missile designation -- 9M729 -- which outside arms-control experts have been focusing on for some time now.

That has led to concerns that the new missile could be indistinguishable from an existing system that is not covered by the INF treaty: the highly sophisticated Iskander-M. That would pose a challenge for inspecting and verifying the weapon is in compliance.

Ford also made some eyebrow-raising comments about officials previously involved in U.S. arms control policy in the administration of Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.

“Let me start with arms control with Russia, about which I am proud to say that we in the new team are proving ourselves tougher-minded and more rigorous than our predecessors,” Ford said, according to the written transcript.

“By contrast to our predecessors, the new administration decided that the INF status quo we inherited was unacceptable and that we must make unavailable to the Russians the option of continuing to see us constrained while they remain free to do as they wish,” he said.

RFE/RL correspondent Rikard Jozwiak contributed to this report from Brussels.

Mike Eckel is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL based in Washington.
EckelM@rferl.org

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://themercury.com/opinion/russi...cle_737cefe3-6c3a-5352-bbef-3b7c2e86bf5c.html

Russia struggles to modernize its weapons

Dale Herspring
Special to The Mercury 18 hrs ago (0)

Our military is not the only one that struggles over its military budget. All militaries do, including the Russian armed forces. Indeed, while there are those who believe that Putin has an unending supply of money to use on his military, my experience suggests that in contrast to the time of the Soviet Union, Moscow’s weapons programs go through a process not unlike our own. Don’t get me wrong, Putin has a major impact on how much money goes to the military, but the generals are no longer in a position to just place an order for a weapon and expect to see it delivered forthwith.

While there is a certain amount of “hanky-panky” present in the allocation of money for weapons and equipment in Moscow, it is not the way it was in the “old days.” I remember an occasion when General Akhromeyev was asked about the size of the Russian military budget by a senior American officer, and he responded, “I don’t know.” Akhromeyev went on to explain that when he needed a new weapon or some type of equipment, he told the politicians and they took care of ordering it. He went on to explain that it was never a question of how much remained in the military budget, it was a question of the willingness of the politicians to provide another ship, plane, tank, etc.

That situation has changed. The military now is given a budget and expected to purchase what it needs out of that sum of money. Several years ago, Putin made it clear that he intended to funnel a considerable amount of money to the military so that it could modernize, but he also made it clear that he expected the generals and admirals to live within that budget. The Russian armed forces have been struggling with that process ever since.

Based on work undertaken by several Western scholars, the current modernization program runs through 2020. The military has been working on it since 2011. Its budget was 19.3 trillion rubles. In the meantime, work has been focused on developing a new program; the State Armament Program for 2018-27. As one might expect, the drafting of this new program has been accompanied by a strong, internal battle, first, between the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Finance, and second, between the services themselves over who “gets what.”

In 2014 the military asked for 30-55 trillion rubles, while Finance called for a budget of 14 trillion rubles. Meanwhile, the country’s financial situation had clearly deteriorated by the end of 2015. As a consequence, both sides lowered their targets final setting of the size of the new budget was postponed until 2017.

In 2016, the Defense Ministry requested 24 trillion rubles for eight years, while Finance wanted no more than 12 trillion. Last winter, after what must have been a rather bloody budgetary battle the figure of 17 trillion was agreed upon. Since then, another 2 trillion has been added for a grand total of 19 trillion.

One trillion rubles focusing on modernizing the military supply system is still up for grabs. While the conflict between Finance and Defense was settled, the battle continued among the military services, with each arguing that its weapons are of primary importance.

Based on what we can tell at this point, the majority of the money will be allocated to the army’s Ground Forces and to modernizing nuclear weapons. This means that the Russian Navy which had the highest priority for procurement in the last budget has fallen to bottom of the pecking order. Some believe that Ground Forces will receive almost one quarter of the military’s budget.

Several years ago, in an effort to gain closer control over this complex and multifaceted military procurement process, Putin set up twice yearly meetings involving the military’s top brass and senior representatives of the defense industry. These meetings, which take place in Sochi, are aimed at airing the military industry’s main concerns as well as looking at the issues related to military procurement. The last meeting was a four day marathon held last month.

The new program remains in the area of 19 trillion rubles. From what we can tell, almost all of new equipment and weapons will be purchased in Russia. That is a way of ensuring that the fluctuation in the rubles exchange rate with the West will not impact on prices.

During the November meetings Putin focused on two priorities. First, he requested that the defense industry increase “serial and uninterrupted production of military equipment.” When it comes to serial production, Putin made it clear that he is defining the term as it is understood in the West. He made it clear that he has had enough of the chaotic Russian production process of the past.

Putin is also putting new emphasis on reequipping the Air Force. In the process, he intends to have fewer but more modern and effective aircraft. Ground forces will focus on battle tanks and armored vehicles. The strategic nuclear forces are also of prime importance as is the acquisition of an effective air defense system. Finally, during the November meetings, Putin made it clear that he expects significant progress on “robotization.”

For someone who has followed Russian/Soviet military procurement and modernization over the years, the aforementioned programs sound like the many unsuccessful ones that have proceeded them. However, Putin appears to have straightened out the mess that existed between Finance, the manufacturers and the assembly plants. I have no doubt that the Russian process, as in other countries also has hidden costs.

The big question is whether Putin has solved the issue of predictability. Can the factory be sure that the units producing the basic items will be ready when they say they will? Can they be relied upon?

This still leaves the question of quality control on the table. Up to this point, it has been an impossible problem for Russian military factories. However, if Putin’s new approach helps solve that problem, it would go a long way toward giving the military the predictability in equipment and weapons that it desperately needs.


Dale R. Herspring, distinguished professor emeritus at Kansas State University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is a retired US diplomat and Navy captain.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummmm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_russias_military_victory_masks_diplomatic_impotence_in_syria

Russia’s military victory masks diplomatic impotence in Syria

Commentary
Julien Barnes-Dacey
@jbdacey
15th December, 2017

Damascus has continually rebuffed Russian efforts to pivot to a political track, highlighting Moscow’s apparent inability to rein in its client.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Hmeimim airbase in Syria on 11 December was Moscow’s ‘mission accomplished’ moment. More than two years after the beginning of Russia’s military intervention in the country’s civil war, Putin ordered the “victorious” return home of a “significant” element of the country’s military presence. But while Russia may have now secured Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s position, highlighting the decisiveness of Russian military might, Putin is nonetheless still struggling to shape a political track able to deliver the international legitimisation that Russia apparently craves.

Much of what President Putin said in Syria this week is undeniably true. With Russian support the Assad government has secured its position, first defeating anti-government rebels - who Moscow and Damascus labelled terrorists - before turning their gaze on ISIS and capturing a vast swathe of eastern Syrian from the jihadist group.

Critics have long claimed that Moscow disingenuously targeted more moderate-leaning opposition fighters, leaving ISIS alone. But this ignores Moscow’s longstanding, albeit cynical, view of the Assad central government as the only legitimate vehicle able to defeat extremism. Under this interpretation, the more existential challenge posed to Damascus by non-ISIS rebels necessarily had to be addressed before Assad or Russia could turn their sight on the more distant threat posed by ISIS.

Assad now controls most of the populated areas of the country, all the key cities, and is clearly not going to step down from power any time soon. This is a position now tacitly accepted by many international actors, most of whom have ended ongoing support to the armed opposition and are now essentially deferring to Russian leadership.

But even if the military fruits of this approach are clear, the political fall-out remains uncertain. For Assad, Russian military support has always been seen as a path towards re-asserting total political control over all of Syria. Russia, however, appears to acknowledge that this is not feasible.

This is not merely because of the situation on the ground: regime capacity constraints and ongoing interventions by other international actors appear to rule out any near-term government ambition of re-establishing the pre-2011 centralised political order.

The acknowledgement also appears to reflect Moscow’s desire for international legitimisation of its Syrian venture as confirmation of its great power status, one of the key perceived reasons behind Russia’s initial entry in the conflict.

Without some form of negotiated political settlement to lock in international support – no longer so formidable a task given international acceptance of Assad’s continuity and a wide desire to simply end the conflict – Moscow’s success will be tainted by a lack of finality. Even today, the desire for western reconstruction support seems less about rebuilding Syria than getting wider international sign off for the Russian project.

Russia is now actively seeking to drive forward a political process, working in close cooperation with Turkey and Iran to forge a political track out of the military-centric Astana process. But it is clearly struggling in this endeavour. The new centrepiece of this approach, Russia’s proposed Syria national dialogue congress in Sochi, has already been delayed and has only received lacklustre buy-in from the different warring and international parties.

At the heart of the issue is an apparent Russian inability to force any political concessions out of Assad, despite the fact that fundamental challenges to his authority are no longer on the table. The Syrian leader remains utterly intransigent, unwilling to give even an inch towards any reform measures that could offer the opposition something minimal to hold onto, let alone lock in a sustained decrease in fighting and open up of humanitarian space.

Damascus has continually rebuffed Russian efforts to pivot to a political track. Whether rejecting a proposed Russian-drafted Syrian constitution, walking away from Russian sponsored talks with the Kurds or refusing to attend Russian supported peace talks in Geneva, Assad has demonstrated a flagrant unwillingness to play ball.

Assad remains determined to force Russia to back his ambition of total victory, highlighting Moscow’s apparent inability to rein in its client. Part of Putin’s message to Assad during trip to Syria may have been a reminder of the country’s ongoing dependency on Russia in a bid to press him to come to the negotiating table.

But Assad has cards of his own and has proven adept, often working hand in hand with Iran, at nudging the Russians towards his own position rather than bending the other way. Russia has never deployed sustained, significant pressure on Assad, such as by lifting its UN security council protection of the Syrian government.

Assad appears to remain confident that, having invested so much in Damascus, Putin is now compelled to stay the course. He may be right: in the end, any break with Assad would fatally expose Moscow’s longstanding position on the conflict.
​
​This article was originally published by Valdai Club.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://thediplomat.com/2017/12/the-great-leap-forward-chinas-pursuit-of-a-strategic-breakthrough/

The Great Leap Forward: China’s Pursuit of a Strategic Breakthrough

Prepare for a new and dangerous phase in international relations.

By Roncevert Ganan Almond
December 15, 2017

On February 25, 1956, in a closed session of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave his “Secret Speech” denouncing Stalin and his cult of personality. The political tremors from this questioning of Communist doctrine traveled across the border to Beijing where Chinese-leader Mao Zedong initially responded with an invitation for criticism (“Let a thousand flowers bloom”), only to double down on his relentless pursuit of internal enemies and continuous revolution. In search of a strategic breakthrough, Mao embarked on the Great Leap Forward, a sweeping, terrifying and, ultimately, catastrophic economic program designed to surpass the achievements of Western industrialization in an accelerated timeframe (in one “big bang”).

Beginning with Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China has since charted a different course, one of economic reform and modernization. This internal change dovetailed with external factors such as the end of the Cold War and expansion of globalization. Nearly forty years later, with hundreds of millions of Chinese lifted from poverty, a growing middle class, and the world’s second largest economy, Beijing’s ascent is one of the most important narratives in modern history. China’s rise has also been graded and moderated in comparison to the turbulent and tragic character of Mao’s era.

However, we are seeing Beijing turn way from the steady “hide and abide” approach of the Xiaoping period. Buoyed by its economic performance following the global financial crisis and with President Xi Jinping’s recent consolidation of power, China may be entering a new daring revisionist phase, this time on the global stage. On October 18, 2017, at the Depa, standing in the majesty of the Great Hall, Xi proclaimed that he would be leading China into a “new era.”

Period of Strategic Opportunity
According to the 2017 annual report of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), China’s senior leadership believes we are amidst a “period of strategic opportunity” during which China can expand national power and achieve objectives such as unification with Taiwan and control of disputed territory along China’s periphery. The USCC is a non-partisan Congressional body mandated with investigating the national security implications of U.S.-China relations, including Chinese military plans, strategy and doctrine.

Three USCC commissioners, including former Senator Jim Talent, offered in an addendum to the report intended to sound the alarm for U.S. policymakers: “In short, China is not just an asymmetric threat to the United States, or even a near-peer competitor. It has become, in its region, the dominant military power. That fact, more than any other, explains why China’s aggressions over the last five years have been successful.” These actions include “the ‘great wall of sand’ in the South China Sea, the ADIZ in the East China Sea, aggression against the Philippines in defiance of international law, coercion of Vietnam over the Spratly Islands, increasing pressure on Taiwan, harassment of Japan over the Senkaku Islands, and other provocative acts.” We could add to this list the stand-off with India in the Doklam region of the disputed China-Bhutan border.

Beyond contested borderlands, Beijing has also begun to flex its muscles on the world stage. On August 1, 2017, China opened its first permanent overseas military base in Djibouti, strategically located near the Gulf of Aden, adjacent to the Arabian Sea – and also a short drone flight away from Camp Lemonnier, a major U.S. counterterrorism hub and America’s only permanent military base in Africa. In May, Xi led a forum featuring China’s “One Belt One Road” (OBOR) scheme of interconnected multimodal corridors linking China with Asia, Africa, and Europe, and encompassing approximately 60 countries. Xi pledged an additional $124 billion for OBOR’s large-scale infrastructure projects, which involve financing by the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), as well as from the Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank.

In 2017, China also engaged in significant international institution-building activities such as expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to include the major (and dueling) powers of South Asia, India and Pakistan, and continuation of BRICS, hosting the 9th annual summit attended by the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. While the U.S. was withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Beijing continued negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a free trade agreement involving 16 countries in the Asia-Pacific that account for half of the world’s population and almost one-third of global GDP.

Military Modernization and Advanced Weaponry
Underlying China’s new posture is the country’s military modernization program. Beijing continues to improve its military software – its command-and-control structure. Over the last two years Beijing has centralized and consolidated space, cyber, electronic warfare, signals, and potentially human intelligence capabilities under the “Strategic Support Force” within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). According the USCC report, this could enhance the Chinese military’s ability to conduct integrated joint operations by providing a wide range of collection capabilities including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support. Responsibility for the intelligence and reconnaissance functions involved in locating and tracking targets will be centralized at the Strategic Support Force rather than dispersed among different units. In the event of a conflict, the USCC warns that Washington must assume this advancement will contribute to Beijing’s anti-access/anti-denial (A2/AD) capabilities vis-à-vis U.S. forward deployments in the region.

Additionally, China continues to invest in military hardware supported by a growing military budget, announced to be $151.1 billion for 2017 (a likely underestimation, but 7 percent greater than the previous year), and still well below the $611 billion in U.S. in defense spending for 2016, as reported by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. But the military budget is only one consideration. The development of advanced weapons reflects a broader sophistication in the fields of science and technology, inclusive of private sector innovation. In turn, the USCC highlights China’s “comprehensive and state-directed approach” to leverage government funding, commercial technological exchange, foreign investment and acquisitions, and talent recruitment to bolster its dual-use technological advances.

Of particular consequence is Beijing’s prioritization of “leap-ahead” technologies that can provide a “surprise breakthrough” that changes the strategic balance in the Asia-Pacific and beyond. More specifically, the USCC cites six examples: (1) maneuverable reentry vehicles, (2) hypersonic weapons, (3) directed energy weapons, (4) electromagnetic railguns, (5) unmanned and artificial intelligence (AI)-equipped weapons, and (6) counter-space weapons. According to the USCC, China is employing the strategy of shashoujian, which translates as “assassin’s mace weapon,” in which a weaker power utilizes a specific capability to defeat a stronger one. To borrow from the pioneering game theorist, Thomas Schelling, China seeks a “strategic move” that induces the United States into making a choice constrained by the debilitating threat of advanced weaponry.

For example, the USCC reports that China has developed unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles, and conducted research on unmanned ground and surface vehicles with the potential for autonomous swarm control capabilities. For example, at the Guangzhou Airshow in February 2017, China demonstrated a record-breaking formation of 1,000 rotary-wing drones based on pre-programmed routes. According to the USCC, such swarming techniques could be used to create a distributed armed system which, coupled with AI capabilities, could be used for saturating and overwhelming the defenses of high-value weapons platforms such as aircraft carriers. This could impact the outcome of a potential U.S.-Chinese engagement in the South or East China Sea.

For counter-space technology, the USCC documents Beijing’s small-satellite “rendezvous and proximity operations” that could be applied against U.S. commercial or military satellites. China can use space-based platforms to launch kinetic, non-kinetic physical, or electromagnetic attacks. Combatting and deterring the “space superiority” of the United States is critical for a potential conflict, for example, in the Taiwan Strait involving long-range precision strikes. This is consistent with an earlier finding of the USCC that Beijing has rejected international efforts, such as the EU-proposed International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities, which may curtail its counter-space weapons like co-orbital anti-satellite systems. As I noted in these pages, with space increasingly becoming an area of international competition, from economic to strategic, we should expect China and other powers to militarize their space technology, even under the guise of civilian or commercial use.

The USCC concludes with a blunt warning: “The United States for the first time faces a peer technological competitor – a country that is also one of its largest trading partners and that trades extensively with other high-tech powers – in an era in which private sector research and development with dual-use implications increasingly outpaces and contributes to military developments.” In an international environment involving multi-dimensional spheres of warfare (land, sea, air, space, and cyber), today’s race to develop frontier technology could determine tomorrow’s balance of power.

National Greatness and Elusive Equilibrium
The international security dynamic remains tense and unpredictable. With their separate but comparable appeals to nationalism, both China and the United States have added to this uncertainty. Xi, who has become the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao, has vowed to realize a new “Chinese Dream” – the great restoration of Chinese power and “lost” territory – galvanizing crowds at Communist Party rallies. Propagandists have reportedly carried “with Mao-like zeal” the revised Communist Party charter enshrining “Xi Jinping Thought” to outposts in the South China Sea.

However, standing in the way of Xi’s Chinese renaissance is a security architecture buttressed by American power. For his part, U.S. President Donald Trump has built upon the populist wave he fostered in the 2016 election by calling for a renewed American sovereignty and patriotism, supported by a substantial increase in defense spending. He has also threatened war on China’s doorstep, the Korean peninsula, and Chinese trade practices, from aluminum steel imports to intellectual property protections. Unsurprisingly, given the unfinished and uneven development of Trump’s “America first” foreign policy, the White House continues to struggle in finding balance in the U.S.-China relationship.

Indeed, equilibrium will remain elusive when there are competing visions of national greatness. As Henry Kissinger once observed, “No power will submit to a settlement however well balanced and however ‘secure’, which seems totally to deny its vision of itself.” Political Scientist Robert Gilpin adds that a state will “never cease” in pressing what it regards as its “just claims on the international system.”

For China and Xi, this may mean pressing to resolve outstanding territorial claims and continuing to make a new regional order reflective of China’s self-image. For the United States and Trump, this may lead to readjustment of the bargain underlying U.S. trade and a reassertion of American hard power in the “Indo-Pacific” – including, if necessary, engaging in preemptive self-defense against North Korea. It does not take Thucydides to recognize that, within this unsettled context, a Chinese leap forward, through military modernization and advanced technology, will lead to a new and dangerous phase in international relations.

Roncevert Ganan Almond is a partner at The Wicks Group, based in Washington, D.C. He has advised the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on issues concerning international law and written extensively on maritime disputes in the Asia-Pacific. The views expressed here are strictly his own.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454691/us-navy-visits-taiwan-dont-let-beijing-bully-us

China Mistakenly Challenges Andrew Jackson to a Duel

A Chinese diplomat’s insulting words invite a vigorous response from the U.S.

by JERRY HENDRIX
December 15, 2017 2:45 PM

The United States Navy will be making a port call in Taiwan in the near future. The only questions that remain are where, when, and how many ships of what type will drop anchor or tie up at Taiwanese piers. Of course, this may cause a war to break out in Asia, but it won’t be one of the United States’ making.

We owe this troubling possibility to a China whose rising sense of anticipatory greatness is at odds with its capacity to execute a successful war. Hubris stimulated a Chinese official, Li Kexin, who is attached to its embassy in Washington, D.C., to threaten war against the United States. Li was responding to fairly normal language within the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act that allowed for mutual port visits between American and Taiwan naval vessels. In response, Li stated: “The day that a U.S. Navy vessel arrives in Kaohsiung [Taiwan’s main deep-water port] is the day that our People’s Liberation Army unifies Taiwan with military force.” This non-diplomatic démarche represents a break in precedent, as the United States Navy has made port calls in Taiwan, and it also directly challenges U.S. law in the form of the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which unequivocally states that the United States will “consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.”

Under these conditions, the United States has no choice but to send the United States Navy to Taiwan for a port visit, and to do so in a big way. The USS Ronald Reagan, a Nimitz-class super carrier based in Japan, with its entire embarked air wing of 65 strike fighters and reconnaissance aircraft and its accompanying escort strike group of Ticonderoga-class Aegis cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class ballistic-missile-defense destroyers, should quickly sortie to Taiwan. They should divide up, with one portion of the strike group transiting down the strait that separates the island from China and the other coming down the eastern coast, meeting up at the southern tip to escort the Reagan into port at Kaohsiung.

At that point, the other strike-group ships should either take up station north and south of Taiwan, with their Aegis radars at full alert given the nature of Mr. Li’s threat, or rotationally enter other ports in Taiwan for friendly port visits. The Ohio-class guided-missile submarine Michigan, carrying 154 Tomahawk missiles, should also make an appearance, before quietly disappearing into the depths to continue its lonely patrols. Such a move would be an effective demonstration of American naval coercive diplomacy worthy of Theodore Roosevelt.

Additionally, the United States should consider a robust, healthy defensive-arms sale package for Taiwan in the coming year. Surface ships and fighter aircraft, top-of-the-line fifth-generation stealth fighters, should be part of the package, but over the last year the United States has quietly been encouraging Taiwan to invest in small diesel-electric submarines that would allow the island nation to better protect its maritime territorial waters. Recently parties from within the U.S. defense industry have apparently partnered with the Swedish shipbuilder SAAB to integrate missile-payload modules into SAAB’s submarine designs. The U.S. should make a similar offer of this technology to Taiwan so it can have a conventional second-strike capability from beneath the seas, and China should be informed, despite all its protesting, that it asked for this.

All of this will be viewed by China as escalatory, and it should be, but the Chinese must be reminded that it was their intemperate language that started the upwards climb. China often warns other nations, when discussing their escalatory moves, that they have domestic nationalist movements that they have to struggle to contain. They should be reminded that the United States has certain nationalist tendencies as well, and insulting challenges on American soil, such as the one offered by Li Kexin, are not helpful to the maintenance of relations between the United States and Communist China.

Some years ago the noted geo-strategist Walter Russell Mead identified four schools of U.S. foreign policy; the pro-business Hamiltonians, the liberal-order Wilsonians, the realist Jeffersonians, and the mercurial, exceptionalist Jacksonians. The election of President Donald Trump signaled the return of the Jacksonian impulse for the first time in a generation, and China should take heed. With regard to Donald Trump’s election, Mead said, “Jacksonian America felt itself to be under siege, with its values under attack and its future under threat. Trump — flawed as many Jacksonians themselves believed him to be — seemed the only candidate willing to help fight for its survival.” By and large, Jacksonians are not interested in externalities. They are not much interested in government, for that matter, largely preferring to be left alone, but when threatened, they react with hair-trigger responses.

And when it comes to war? Mead states that “when an enemy attacks, Jacksonians spring to the country’s defense” viscerally, and Jacksonians, like their namesake Andrew Jackson, will not stop until honor is satisfied. It is a dangerous impulse to stimulate, as China’s Li Kexin has done. China owes the United States a public apology. It now needs to accept a U.S. Navy port visit to Taiwan with a minimum of protests, and it needs to understand that it faces someone who is willing to climb the ladder of escalation in the person of President Donald Trump and his policy of strategic ambiguity. Lastly, China needs to call its diplomat home or face the humiliation of his being declared persona non grata.

READ MORE:
How to Stop China in the South China Sea
Why President Trump Should Break the ‘One China’ Spell
China’s New Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

— Jerry Hendrix is a retired U.S. Navy captain, an award-winning naval historian, and a senior fellow and director of the Defense Strategies and Assessments Program at the Center for a New American Security.

 

[Housecarl]

Well this is going to get interesting...Kind of reminds me of the LA Riots when the Libs went to gun shops to get guns and found out they had to wait for their background check.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12/...clear-attack-should-the-bay-area-follow-suit/

Hawaii is preparing for a North Korean nuclear attack. Should the Bay Area follow suit?

By CASEY TOLAN | ctolan@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: December 16, 2017 at 6:00 am | UPDATED: December 16, 2017 at 3:18 pm

HONOLULU — For the first time in more than three decades, an ominous warning siren blared across Hawaii earlier this month — an alarm that one day could mean a nuclear missile is about to hit.

The siren, a Cold War relic brought back in the wake of new threats from North Korea, is the centerpiece of the most wide-ranging campaign in the U.S. to prepare for a nuclear strike. Over the last few months, state officials have aired TV ads warning Hawaiians to “get inside, stay inside” if an attack is imminent. They’ve also held meetings across the islands to educate residents on the danger.

Especially after North Korea’s latest missile test, some experts believe California and the Bay Area — one of the closest U.S. metro areas to Pyongyang after Honolulu — should follow Hawaii’s example. But so far the Golden State’s reaction has been starkly different.

“Hawaii feels like it’s on the front lines because it’s so close to North Korea, but these weapons have a pretty long reach,” said Alex Wellerstein, a professor who studies nuclear weapons at New Jersey’s Stevens Institute of Technology. In practical terms, he said, “Hawaii isn’t a whole lot closer than San Francisco.”

Indeed, Hawaii is about 4,600 miles from North Korea, compared to 5,450 miles for the City by the Bay.

Hawaii’s alarm was tested Dec. 1 following the regular tsunami siren and will be tested on the first business day of every month. It’s a wailing caterwaul, impossible to ignore, and sounds different from the single-tone tsunami warning. For many locals and tourists, the foreboding sound evoked an earlier era when American schoolchildren were taught to hide under their desks in case the Soviet Union launched a nuclear strike.

“I hope we don’t get to that point again,” said Lance Whitney, 64, who was suiting up to go kitesurfing on a picturesque Maui beach when the siren sounded.

But amid the acrimonious back-and-forth between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, this is the new normal for Hawaii.

If a North Korean missile were actually on its way toward the Aloha State, the alarm would give residents about a 13-minute heads up, officials say. Hawaiians would also get emergency text message alerts on their smartphones — and a warning would interrupt TV and radio broadcasts.

Emergency officials are telling residents to prepare for nuclear holocaust by stockpiling up to two weeks of food and medicine. If an attack is imminent, they should get inside, seal all windows, shelter in the most stable part of their home or office — and wait for further information.

While analysts say North Korean missiles can probably reach most of the U.S., it’s unclear whether the country can mount a nuclear warhead on a missile or aim well enough to hit a city.

Still, “we just couldn’t ignore these constant threats and missile tests from North Korea,” said Vern Miyagi, Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency administrator. He stressed that a nuclear strike from the rogue state was unlikely, but he said state leaders felt a responsibility to address it because a nuclear missile aimed at Honolulu could cause 18,000 fatalities and 50,000 to 120,000 casualties.

While some officials worried that preparing for a nuclear strike could cause a panic, “what we’ve learned from the last few months is that the public can handle it,” Miyagi said. “People are welcoming this information, and we need to share everything we know.”

So far, there’s no nuclear preparedness campaign in the Bay Area or California that even approaches Hawaii’s push.

“We are not doing anything to that level now,” said Mark Ghilarducci, the director of the California Office of Emergency Services.

Officials are holding weekly meetings with the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security and receiving classified briefings about the nuclear threat to California, he said. But “the probability that Californians will be faced with a fire or an earthquake is so much higher than a nuclear detonation,” he said.

San Francisco’s network of alarm sirens has been tested weekly for decades. While there’s no specific alarm for an incoming missile, a general alarm accompanied by cellphone alerts specifying a nuclear attack would be used in that case, said Francis Zamora, a spokesman for the city’s emergency department.

Oakland also has a siren system that it tests monthly. The Emergency Management Services Division put a few paragraphs about a nuclear attack on its website “when all this hyperbole started happening between us and North Korea,” said Mitchell Green, the agency’s acting director, but there are no plans for a broader public education effort.

In San Jose, “a lot of the old air raid siren systems were dismantled many, many years ago,” said Ray Riordan, the city’s director of emergency services. When the Cold War ended more than a quarter-century ago, funding for nuclear warning systems dried up — one of Riordan’s first jobs was helping take down the siren network. It would cost millions of dollars to rebuild it now, he said.

Public awareness campaigns like Hawaii’s are important now because “there are several generations of Americans who have never had to take nuclear weapons seriously,” said Wellerstein, the professor. Explaining the best practices for surviving an attack can make a difference.

But some observers question whether preparedness campaigns give people a false sense of security. Telling people to get inside their homes “really sells short how catastrophic this would be,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey. “What you want is not to have the nuclear war in the first place.”

Experts predict that if North Korea did target Hawaii, it would try to hit Pearl Harbor, the headquarters of the Pacific Fleet. A map of potential nuclear targets in a 2013 North Korean propaganda photo included Honolulu.

The idea of Pearl Harbor as a target brings back memories for Sterling Cale, who was a 20-year-old Navy medical specialist stationed there when Japanese forces attacked on Dec. 7, 1941. Now 96, he volunteers at the Pearl Harbor historic site every week, wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt and pointed Navy cap as he talks to visitors about his experience.

“We’re much more prepared now than we were in World War II,” Cale said. “I’m not worried — our people are ready for anything that might happen.”

Some Hawaiians, however, fear that the nuclear threat will scare vacationers away from the state’s beaches.

Makani Christensen, a tour guide in Honolulu, thought regular sirens could hurt his business. State officials should “think about the big picture and not jump into this hysteria unless (a missile) is absolutely coming,” he said.

Several visitors did say they had second thoughts about visiting after hearing the Dec. 1 siren. Derrick and Nancy Chappell, 84 and 83, who are from Lincolnshire, England, had just disembarked from a relaxing five-day cruise to Honolulu when the wailing started.

“We heard that noise when the Germans were coming,” Nancy said. “It brought everything back again.”

The siren also interrupted the Waikiki honeymoon of New York newlyweds Angad and Shilpa Singh, 29 and 28. When it blared through their hotel room windows, Shilpa Singh said, “it was like, should we really be here?”

But Dean Nakasone, a vice-president with the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association, an industry group, said those fears were overblown. For tourists to avoid Hawaii because of fear of a nuclear strike would be even less rational than avoiding California out of fear of wildfires, he said: “We’re doing the preparation like we would for any other kind of emergency.”

Casey Tolan Casey Tolan covers national politics and the Trump administration for the Bay Area News Group. Previously, he was a reporter for the news website Fusion, where he covered criminal justice, immigration, and politics. His reporting has also been published in CNN, Slate, the Village Voice, the Texas Observer, the Daily Beast and other news outlets. Casey grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and graduated from Columbia University.

Comments 105

(One of these comments in a quick review really stood out.....)

What would Hillary do???

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/image...337131c5b5c15c1605dab7210957b.jpg?w=800&h=196

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.newsweek.com/china-must-...rea-top-national-security-experts-warn-750481

CHINA MUST PREPARE FOR IMMINENT WAR WITH NORTH KOREA, TOP NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERTS WARN

BY CRISTINA SILVA ON 12/16/17 AT 12:56 PM

It's not just the United States that could soon see itself engaged in a deadly conflict with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. China is also at risk of an imminent war with North Korea, warned some of China's most prestigious national security experts at a conference in Beijing this week.

“Conditions on the peninsula now make for the biggest risk of a war in decades,” said Shi Yinhong, director of the Center on American Studies at Renmin University of China in Beijing and an adviser to the State Council of China on diplomacy issues since February 2011, during the conference. “North Korea is a time bomb. We can only delay the explosion, hoping that by delaying it, a time will come to remove the detonator,” he added, reported the South China Morning Post Saturday.

Wang Hongguang, former deputy commander of the Nanjing Military Region, an important military region, warned that a war could begin as soon as March, when South Korea and the United States are slated to hold annual military drills. “It is a highly dangerous period,” Wang said during the conference. “Northeast China should mobilize defenses for war.”

Chinese officials have sought to improve relations with North Korea amid unusually high tensions between Pyongyang and world leaders over the reclusive nation's growing nuclear program. But local governments in China have also taken precautions to prepare for conflict in case various diplomatic gestures do not succeed. Earlier this month, a government newspaper in China’s northeastern province of Jilin on the North Korean border published a full-page article advising residents on how to survive a nuclear attack, Quartz reported.

“It’s natural that Jilin province is more sensitive to the situation on the Korean peninsula, given its special geographic location. It’s necessary for the provincial paper to publish information on nuclear weapons,” wrote state tabloid Global Times in an editorial.

As its largest trading partner and main source of food, China is North Korea's most significant ally. It has recently embraced new U.N. sanctions against North Korea while also calling for dialogue. U.S. officials, however, have urged China to do more to temper its neighbor's global threats and nuclear ambitions, Politico has reported.

“Each U.N. member state must fully implement all existing U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday in remarks at the United Nations Security Council. “For those nations who have not done so, or who have been slow to enforce Security Council resolutions, your hesitation calls into questions whether your vote is a commitment to words only, but not actions. For countries who have not taken action, I urge you to consider your interest, your allegiances and your values in the face of this grave and global threat.”

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.realcleardefense.com/ar...trategy_and_the_new_nuclear_world_112793.html

Trump’s Security Strategy and the New Nuclear World

By Evan Moore
December 17, 2017

The Trump administration will release its National Security Strategy on Monday, December 18. This white paper, required by the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, is the most authoritative guide to America’s allies and adversaries alike about the administration’s approach to foreign policy. Likewise, the Pentagon is also scheduled to release its Nuclear Posture Review by the end of the year, which outlines what the role of America’s nuclear weapons in its overall strategy should be. These reports will shed critical light on the White House’s strategic worldview and how the administration will seek to address the rapid deterioration of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime.

Growing Nuclear Threats
North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs have dominated headlines in recent years and will no doubt figure prominently in Monday’s release. However, the administration should also take note of the growing strategic challenges from existing nuclear states. Pentagon officials reportedly fear that Russia is planning to expand its own arsenal to as many as 8,000 deployed warheads a decade from now. Moscow has also systematically violated arms control agreements throughout its history, but most recently has breached the 1987 INF Treaty by testing and deploying missiles with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers.

Not to be outdone, the Department of Defense reports that China is “is developing and testing several new variants of missiles, forming additional missile units, retiring or upgrading older missile systems; and developing methods to counter ballistic missile defenses.” Furthermore, as the National Institute for Public Policy noted, “China is expanding its strategic nuclear forces; the question is the limit of that expansion,” the Obama administration estimated it to be “several hundred,” while some independent estimates are far higher. The administration should inform this debate with a fresh analysis and detail how it will attempt to reverse Beijing’s efforts to strategically dominate the Western Pacific.

Furthermore, both the Carnegie Endowment and Stimson Center assess that Pakistan will triple its nuclear arsenal over the next decade, even while it is beset with challenges from radical Islamists. Other states are also considering expanding their nuclear program. Saudi Arabia announced in October that it would domestically extract uranium as part of a “self-sufficient” nuclear program. U.S. policymakers are concerned that Riyadh has even greater nuclear ambitions. The Daily Beast reported in 2014 that the Saudis have sought to master all elements of the fuel cycle, including enrichment, and in recent years “has quietly been developing the engineering and scientific knowledge base” to do so, and is “hiring the scientists and engineers needed to build the cascades of centrifuges needed to produce nuclear fuel.”

North Korea, in a worst-case estimate by the U.S-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, may have enough material for as many as 100 nuclear weapons by the end of this decade. In light of these troubling advances, South Korea’s conservative opposition leader, Hong Joon-pyo, is calling for the redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to the country or creating nuclear weapons of their own. According to recent public opinion polling, 68 percent of South Koreans support the redeployment of U.S. nuclear weapons to the peninsula and 60 percent support South Korea developing nuclear weapons of its own.

A New Approach for a New Century
As the third decade of the twenty-first century approaches, the nuclear world bears little resemblance to the dyad of the Cold War. Instead, there will be several nuclear-armed with significant stockpiles, and several more states that are either nuclear-capable or pursuing capability. For this new environment, the United States needs craft a new approach to defend the United States and our allies and restore confidence in America’s nuclear deterrent.

The simplest and most necessary action that Washington can take is bolstering its missile defense systems. Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council notes that over the past decade, “spending on US homeland missile defense has actually decreased by roughly 46 percent from $3.7 billion to $2 billion.” If the U.S. is to quantitatively and qualitatively remain ahead of the growing nuclear threat, then it will require substantial re-investment in our missile defense budget. For instance, as Michaela Dodge from the Heritage Foundation observes, the United States will have only 44 ground-based interceptors (GBI) deployed next year, and they are the only U.S. system capable of intercepting an ICBM in the middle of its flight. “Current interceptor inventory plans,” she warns, “do not support sustainment at this level past 2018, leaving the impression that the ballistic missile threat will diminish by then. That is unlikely … The United States ought to plan for sustaining 44 deployed interceptors at a minimum.”

An April 2017 report from the Atlantic Council outlined additional measures that the United States can take to rebuild its missile defense capability. A first step would be to complete and fill the planned missile fields in Fort Greely, Alaska, which would allow America to maintain as many as 104 GBIs. The United States could also establish an interceptor site on the East Coast, which would allow for as many as 60 more GBIs. The Trump administration should also consider pursuing new technologies to reduce America’s reliance on the GBI system and create a truly-layered shield against attack, including boost-phase intercept, directed energy, and space-based sensors or interceptors.

President Trump has also pledged to modernize America’s nuclear arsenal. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in November that this effort would cost $40 billion a year for the next 30 years. The CBO finds that the “total cost of nuclear forces would represent about 6 percent of all spending on national defense over the 2017–2046 period.” This is a value, however, when one recognizes the unique and essential role that America’s nuclear weapons play in its national security. A bipartisan group of former civilian and military leaders determined in 2014 that America’s strategic forces “continue to play an essential role in deterring potential adversaries and reassuring U.S. allies and partners around the world.” In light of the “looming obsolescence” of America’s nuclear arsenal, the panel found that modernization of the force is “essential.” It is vital that the National Security Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review reiterate this message for fiscal conservatives in Congress, who remain wary of increases to defense spending. In the words of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, “America can afford survival.”

Finally, while the National Security Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review will likely outline the administration’s approach to Iran and North Korea, they should also emphasize the importance of rolling them back to strengthen the global nonproliferation regime. As these regimes advance their nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, other rogue states may feel emboldened to pursue their own such programs, and the faith of U.S. allies in America’s nuclear deterrent may dwindle. The Trump administration’s policy should be the complete and verifiable denuclearization of both countries, and it should pursue every method to establish sufficient leverage against Tehran and Pyongyang to compel them to do so.

Conclusion
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy warned that “I am haunted by the feeling that by 1970, unless we are successful, there may be 10 nuclear powers instead of four, and by 1975, 15 or 20.” His efforts and his successors helped slow the spread of nuclear weapons, but now his nightmare of a rapidly proliferating world is becoming a reality. The National Security Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review will be vital in showing if the president shares Kennedy’s fear and what his administration will do to address it.

Evan Moore is a foreign policy analyst based in Washington, D.C.

 

[TammyinWI]

Thank you, Housecarl.

 

[Housecarl]

You're most welcome TammyinWI.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.opslens.com/2017/12/17/south-china-sea-shell-game/

The South China Sea Shell Game

By Bart Marcois · December 17, 2017

China continues to build advanced radar bases, major runways and landing strips, hardened storage depots, and forward positioning facilities in the South China Sea. With U.S. attention focused on a bellicose North Korea, and a compliant President Duterte in the Philippines, China is quietly hardening its presence on the disputed islands. A recent report from the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative includes satellite imagery showing the new Chinese construction.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative
The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) is a project sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. AMTI strives to be a neutral party, restricting itself to merely observing and reporting events in the Pacific region. The AMTI website makes its position quite clear.

“AMTI was conceived of and designed by CSIS. It is an interactive, regularly-updated source for information, analysis, and policy exchange on maritime security issues in Asia. AMTI aims to promote transparency in the Indo-Pacific to dissuade assertive behavior and conflict and generate opportunities for cooperation and confidence building. Because AMTI aims to provide an objective platform for exchange, AMTI and CSIS take no position on territorial or maritime claims…. AMTI aggregates information from news sources, as well as specially designated research and nonprofit organizations, public sector institutions in Asia, and individuals.”

South China Sea “Code of Conduct”
This construction took place while China has engaged its Pacific counterparts in ongoing and drawn out discussions about process. The Chinese have signaled a willingness to engage in negotiations over a “code of conduct” regarding the disputed islands. It will be difficult to agree to a code, given the wide gulf in expectations currently evinced by the parties.

For example, the Chinese consider it acceptable for them to build military installations on disputed islands, but consider it a violation if the Australians watch them do it. The Brisbane Times reported, “China’s naval chief Shen Jinlong told his Australian counterpart, Vice Admiral Tim Barrett that Canberra’s actions in the South China Sea run counter to the general trend of peace and stability in one of the world’s most important shipping lanes.”

“This does not accord with the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries nor the atmosphere of the forward steps in cooperation in all areas between the two countries,” Jinlong said. The actions that China thinks run ‘counter to the general trend of peace and stability’ may be surprising. Australia has made surveillance flights over the islands, to see what China is doing, and it provides support to U.S. patrols in the region.

The (South China Sea) Shell Game
Meanwhile, China’s client state, North Korea, continues testing sophisticated missiles with the capacity to reach the American mainland. President Trump has told China repeatedly that it must rein in its dependent to the east, but Chinese leaders continue to claim inability to control Pyongyang. The new satellite photos from AMTI may offer a clue to why the North Korean crisis is still unresolved. It is in China’s interest to keep the U.S. off balance and distracted while China enforces its will in the Spratlys, the Paracels, and the other islands in the area.

This is in keeping with longstanding practice in Chinese negotiating behavior. Ambassador Richard Solomon wrote a monograph about Chinese political negotiating behavior in 1995 for RAND. In it, he listed dozens of common bargaining practices, one of which was titled, descriptively, “You’re Violating the Principles of the Relationship!”

Solomon writes, “Having worked assiduously in the early phase of a negotiation to gain a counterpart government’s commitment to certain general principles, the PRC negotiator will sue that commitment to constrain his interlocutor’s action as the relationship evolves.” Solomon’s experience dealt with U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. At least in that case, there actually was an existing agreement of principles to argue about. In the case of the islands, the “code of conduct” is still only theoretical, but China still is speaking as if the U.S. and its allies are violating it.

It is possible that the world’s search for a solution to North Korean aggression does not lie in either Pyongyang or in Beijing. Perhaps we should be looking much farther south, to the Spratly and Paracel Islands. That may be the game China has been playing all along.

-

Bart Marcois

Bart Marcois (@bmarcois) is a Senior OpsLens Contributor and was the principal deputy assistant secretary of energy for international affairs during the Bush administration. Additionally, Marcois served as a career foreign service officer with the State Department. He is a director at the Richard Richards Foundation.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.realcleardefense.com/ar...lligence_training_center_in_kabul_112800.html

Taliban Seize Afghan Intelligence Training Center in Kabul

By Rahim Faiez & Amir Shah
December 18, 2017

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Gunmen in Afghanistan stormed a partially constructed building near an intelligence training center on Monday in western Kabul, triggering a gunbattle with security forces as detonations and shooting reverberated from the area.

As the firefight unfolded, reinforcements were sent to the district, said Nasrat Rahimi, deputy spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

The gunmen were using heavy weapons, he said, adding that there was no immediate word on casualties. Ambulances were dispatched to the location.

“Initial reports indicate the gunmen are wearing police uniforms,” he said. The building where the attackers are shooting from and the nearby training center of the National Directorate of Security are surrounded by Afghan security forces, he added.

Rahimi confirmed the attackers used rocket-propelled grenades and also light weapons.

No militant group immediately has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier, an Afghan official said a Taliban attack on Sunday killed a police officer and wounded three others in western Badghis province.

According to Gulam Haydar Sarwari, the province’s deputy police chief, insurgents targeted a police security post in the remote district of Ab Kamari. The slain officer was the district police commander, Sarwari added.

The clash lasted almost four hours before scores of the Taliban attackers were repelled, Sarwari said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility from the Taliban, who have been active in Badghis.

The insurgents have stepped up their attacks against both the Afghan and coalition forces across the country.

 

[Doomer Doug]

Gee, I thought we "won" in Afghanistan, Housecarl? The fact that what was essentially a platoon of well armed Taleban stormed a building in downtown Kabul, engaged Afghan security forces for several hours, and then apparently just faded away into the sunset, indicates that we will have to be there for decades, just like South Korea, or else the Taleban will take over five minutes after the last plane flies out. Yep, helicopters on the embassy roof, desperately loading people, and flying off to the aircraft carriers coming right up.

I have noticed nobody in the US government is even claiming we won in Iraq anymore, now that Iran is in full control. Once the sellout of the Kurds is finished, Iraq will simply become part of Greater Iran and the restored Persian Empire.

 

[Housecarl]

Gee, I thought we "won" in Afghanistan, Housecarl? The fact that what was essentially a platoon of well armed Taleban stormed a building in downtown Kabul, engaged Afghan security forces for several hours, and then apparently just faded away into the sunset, indicates that we will have to be there for decades, just like South Korea, or else the Taleban will take over five minutes after the last plane flies out. Yep, helicopters on the embassy roof, desperately loading people, and flying off to the aircraft carriers coming right up.

I have noticed nobody in the US government is even claiming we won in Iraq anymore, now that Iran is in full control. Once the sellout of the Kurds is finished, Iraq will simply become part of Greater Iran and the restored Persian Empire.

You can't secure a place when...

- Your "allies" don't have the level of commitment and professionalism you have (never mind levels of corruption that would make Albany, NY blush) and it's their country in the balance.

- Your enemies have inviolable sanctuaries and aid in neighboring countries.

- You are not allowed to use all of your capabilities and are costantly having the budget for operations messed with along with yo-yoing of foreign policy from the prior administrations that are counter to the goal of accomplishing the mission.

So yeah, Johnson's conduct in Vietnam has a lot of parallels up to this date. The biggest difference being the Viet Cong and NVA had no intention of operating within the US unlike the followers of the "religion of peace".

The whole mess in MENA in comparison makes Afghanistan look like a success as well as showing what further failure looks like....

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://thediplomat.com/2017/12/chinas-bid-to-dominate-the-global-submarine-export-market/

China's Bid to Dominate the Global Submarine Export Market

Chinese shipbuilders will increasingly assume an export profile commensurate with their domestic capabilities.

By Robert Farley
December 19, 2017

China is beginning to aggressively court the submarine export market. In the wake of successful deals with Thailand and Pakistan, China’s submarine-building industry is developing new types with an eye towards breaking into the global market.

Given how many submarines China has built over the past decade, interest in the export market is hardly surprising. Historically, Chinese submarines have been uncompetitive with either Soviet or Western models, but the increasing efficiency of Chinese shipbuilding, combined with improvements in Chinese technology, have narrowed the gap.

Export success thus far has involved variants of the Yuan class, China’s most advanced conventional submarine design. The Yuan class subs are similar in size and appearance to the Russian Kilo, although the extent of a direct connection between the types in unclear. The Yuan-class boats displace about 3600 tons, and can be equipped with a variety of characteristics, including air-independent propulsion (AIP).

Thailand and Pakistan have already ordered boats derived from the Yuan type; the three Thai boats are designated S26T, with a displacement of around 2,600 tons. Pakistan has ordered eight boats of the same type, four to be built in China and four to be built domestically. The S20T is somewhat smaller, displacing around 2300 tons.

The Chinese are also investigating smaller boats, including 200, 600, and 1100 ton subs. These could appeal to a wide variety of customers; according to Jane’s, China’s submarine building firm has claimed that Algeria, Bangladesh, Cuba, Egypt, Libya, Myanmar, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela have expressed interest in its boats. It is not difficult to imagine other customers, such as Iran, having an interest in small boats that can protect their littorals.

China might also have some success cutting into European dominance of the submarine market in South America. Many South American navies operate German boats, often of the Type 209. Chile has two 33-year-old Type 209s; Colombia and Ecuador each have a pair of 40-year-old boats; Peru and Venzeula have similarly aged boats. The future of the Argentine submarine force is uncertain in the wake of the loss of ARA San Juan, but at the moment it can boast of only two older boats; a Type 209 and a larger, specialized sub. The relatively long-ranges required for South American navies might incline them to lean towards the large boats on offer from China.

Chinese shipbuilders will increasingly assume an export profile commensurate with their domestic capabilities. Submarines are a natural area for improvement, given domestic successes and the age of the international submarine fleet. Given this new challenge, European and Russian submarine builders will need to work very hard to maintain their positions.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/18/5717...nce-escalates-across-afghanistan-and-pakistan

Terrorist Violence Escalates Across Afghanistan And Pakistan

December 18, 20174:15 PM ET
Samantha Raphelson

Deadly attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan are highlighting the escalation of the longest foreign war in U.S. history as American and Afghan forces continue to fight a growing presence of ISIS and Taliban insurgents in the region.

The recent violence comes as President Trump delivers a speech on Monday officially outlining his national security strategy. ISIS claimed responsibility for attacks in Kabul and Quetta, Pakistan, in the past two days, while a Taliban attack killed 11 police officers in Helmand Province on Sunday.

Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center, visited the region last month and tells Here & Now's Lisa Mullins it is "one of the most volatile regions in the world."

"Given that the chief U.S. interest in South Asia is stability, the fact that you have rampant instability throughout much of Afghanistan and much of Pakistan as well suggests U.S. interests are very much imperiled in a part of the world where lest we forget, America has been fighting its longest-ever foreign war for the last 17 years," he says.

ISIS fighters launched their attack in the Afghan capital on Monday with a car bomb and rocket-propelled grenades before storming a building near an intelligence training center, according to the Associated Press. Afghan security forces fatally shot the three gunmen before there were any casualties.

On the other side of the border, two ISIS suicide bombers on Monday killed nine people in a Quetta church and wounded 60 others.

An ISIS affiliate managed to form in Afghanistan despite the U.S. military's sustained on-the-ground presence in the country, the Associated Press reports:

A powerful IS affiliate has emerged in Afghanistan in recent years that is largely made up of disgruntled former Taliban insurgents. The group is not as large or well-entrenched as the Taliban, but has carried out a number of deadly attacks, mainly targeting minority Shiites and security forces.

IS has also clashed with the Taliban. The two groups are fiercely divided over ideology, tactics and leadership.​

Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi warned last week that ISIS has begun to shift its focus into Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, following its rapid loss of territory in Iraq and Syria.

"ISIS has lost land, but has not surrendered its arms, and is looking for land in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia in order to, in this way, revive the idea of the Islamic caliphate," he said.

Meanwhile, the Taliban has gained control or is fighting for dominance in more than 40 percent of Afghanistan's districts, which is 3 percent higher than six months ago, according to a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR.

"Helmand is one of the main concerns and has a lot of problems," Afghan Maj. Gen. Wali Mohammad Ahmadzai told NPR in November. "One of the main problems is poppy cultivation and trade and trafficking."

Afghanistan is the top opium producer in the world. The drug trade finances the Taliban and contributes to corruption among the Afghan military, politicians and the police.

As NPR's Tom Bowman reported, Iran has helped move weapons and Taliban fighters into Afghanistan, while Pakistan for years has allowed safe zones for the Taliban and other insurgent groups, such as the Haqqani network. The Pakistani government also denies that ISIS has an organized presence in the country, despite several attacks in recent years.

Kugelman says extremist groups serve Pakistan's interests by keeping its enemy, India, at bay in Afghanistan.

"Pakistan worries that India will try to use Afghanistan as a space to plan nefarious acts inside Pakistan," he says. "A terrorist group like the Haqqani network serves as a useful asset to the Pakistanis because it helps promote their interests by minimizing or reducing the likelihood that India could deepen its presence inside Afghanistan."

Part of President Trump's strategy in Afghanistan includes an increase in airstrikes against the Taliban, which has come at a cost. Civilian deaths due to strikes rose by 52 percent in the first nine months of 2017, according to SIGAR, though the U.S. military has disputed those numbers.

Trump has also increased troop levels to nearly 14,000, betting that fighting the Taliban harder will force the group into peace talks, Kugelman says.

"That's very risky because we've tried it before ... when we had more than 100,000 U.S. troops on the ground during the height of the U.S. troop surge in 2010," he says. "Didn't work then, so I don't see why it would necessarily work now."

 

[Doomer Doug]

Housecarl, I was in the US Army when Vietnam "fell." Kissinger sold out the South Vietnamese because Nixon needed to get out of there, whether he left behind a credible government or not. I can point to specific things that caused South Vietnam to be overwhelmed in the spring of 1975.

First, the South Vietnamese government was both corrupt and incompetent.

Second, our "guy," President Theiu? made one decision that resulted in disaster. When the NVA, and not just the VC, poured over the borders, he made the fateful, and fatal, decision to redeploy the South Vietnamese Army to get a better fighting position. The implementation of that order led to a total collapse that turned into a rout.

Three. The only serious defense of South Vietnam and Saigon mounted was at a crossroads about 50 miles north of Saigon. The South Vietnamese were doing pretty good, at least until the US failed to support them, so they got short of ammo. The US also refused to use carrier based planes to bomb the bunched up, rolling down the roads, NVA armor and infantry columns. Kissinger just let the NVA roll up to Saigon and he abandoned them, even though Nixon had made commitments to the South Vietnamese government that if the NVA invaded, the USA would intervene.

I see the exact same pattern here in Afghanistan. You have a corrupt, totally incompetent military and government. You have an aggressive, well armed, well trained and totally fanatic opposition that will continue fighting.

Trump sending in more military to "stem the tide," indicates neither Trump or his generals bothered to learn the lessons of Vietnam. Now there were things we could have done over the last ten to fifteen years that would have prevented the kind of military collapse now imminent in Afghanistan. We didn't do them and are now paying the price. Afghanistan will last as long as we are willing to protect it with thousands of troops, which we will eventually tire of. So, yeah five minutes after we pull out our combat troops, and the defense of the state is left to the local forces, the taleban will be in downtown Kabul within a week or so. The local leadership will either flee, taking their cases of money and gold, on private jets, or get hung upside down from the nearest light pole.

This particular attack is significant in both the way it happened and where it happened. I find it delusional to say we are in control in Afghanistan when the Taleban can deploy platoon sized units, armed to the teeth and engage government forces on the capital's streets.

Afghanistan is a quagmire to us, just like Vietnam was. We learned nothing. We have done nothing different, and we will get the same collapse the second we take out our firepower.

 

[Housecarl]

Doomer Doug,

I've got no disagreements with your analysis of the Afghan mess nor Vietnam.

As I and many others who've posted have noted, you can't "fix" Afghanistan without both "fixing" Pakistan and being honest as to our reasons for being there and if the rational justifies it actually doing what's necessary regardless of the "optics" to complete the mission. The domestic US politics getting in that mix is probably a couple thousand words worth of commentary on the history of this theater of conflict.

If you're going to have a "satrap" in Kabul that we're paying for, by God get your money's worth out of them else get new puppets (and don't worry about the puppet analogy, our enemies are making that analogy anyways). If the local "security forces" are "free lancing", "fix it" so that's not an option.

If you don't want US troops in the masses needed, fine, make a deal with Nepal for a "volunteer" stabilization force for the area; considering the amount of treasure being burned already it would be a bargain.

There's more than one way to milk and sheer that goat....

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.afp.com/en/news/23/once-taboo-china-listens-us-contingencies-nkorea-doc-v95fg1

Once taboo, China listens to US contingencies on N.Korea

AFP / KIM WON-JIN
People lay flowers at the statues of late North Korean leaders Kim Il-Sung (L) and Kim Jong-Il to mark the sixth anniversary of the death of Kim Jong-Il, in Pyongyang
It was the kind of sitdown that China had long resisted: Top US officials telling Chinese counterparts how American troops would enter North Korea if the hermit regime collapsed.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's recent revelation that such a discussion took place would -- if true -- suggest a major shift in Chinese policy as Beijing comes under pressure to rein in its Korean War ally.

For years Beijing had refused US entreaties to discuss the possible collapse of its neighbour, but top US and Chinese military officials have finally met to discuss the once-taboo topic, Tillerson said last week.

Some stark topics were broached, Tillerson said: Refugees flooding across the Chinese-North Korean border, US troops entering the hermit country -- and leaving again once they had prevented nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands.


AFP / Laurence CHU
North Korea's missile and nuclear tests

The little-noticed disclosure was overshadowed by Tillerson's remarks that Washington was willing to talk with Pyongyang without preconditions -- a statement that he backed away from days later.

Beijing has long refused US requests to discuss North Korea contingencies because it "assessed that near-term instability was unlikely", said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"They feared that the talks wouldn't be kept secret, Pyongyang would find out and their relations with North Korea would deteriorate to the point of becoming hostile," Glaser said.


POOL/AFP/File / ANDY WONG
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (2nd L) attends a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (3rd R) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in September

China's foreign ministry would not confirm Tillerson's account of the talks, with a spokesman saying: "You may have to ask him himself about his meanings and intentions."

Wang Dong, an expert on US-China relations at Peking University, insisted the remarks must be a ploy to "exert pressure" on Pyongyang -- to make it believe Beijing and Washington were prepared to work together.

But he raised doubts about Tillerson's characterisation of the discussion.

"I don't think that China could voluntarily discuss this issue with the US," he said.

The more likely scenario, he insisted, was the "US unilaterally expressed its position, and we couldn't just grab someone's lips and stop them from talking".

- Nuclear arsenal -

Speaking in Washington last Tuesday, Tillerson said US officials had told Chinese counterparts that if a crisis forced US troops to enter North Korea, they would not stay there.

"The most important thing to us would be securing those nuclear weapons they have already developed," he said, adding: "We've had conversations with the Chinese about how might that be done."

"We have given the Chinese assurances we would... retreat back to the south of the 38th Parallel," he said, referring to the line that divides North and South Korea.


AFP/File / JUNG YEON-JE
A South Korean K1A2 tank (blue) and a US M1A2 tank (red) fire live rounds during a joint drill at the Seungjin Fire Training Field northeast of Seoul

The comment appeared aimed at reassuring China that the United States would not occupy North Korea if the Kim regime were to fall.

Beijing has for years viewed North Korea as something of a buffer state preventing the 28,500 US troops in South Korea from camping on its doorstep.

As for the Chinese, Tillerson said, they "already are taking preparatory actions" if North Korean refugees flood across the border.

Beijing has not openly discussed its plans.

But a purported document from state-owned telecommunications firm China Mobile that circulated on social media earlier this month showed that locations in northeastern China have been designated for refugee camps.

The discussions –- which Tillerson said included Defense Secretary James Mattis and both countries' joint chiefs of staff -- likely took place in Washington late last month.

A November 30 report by China's official Xinhua news agency said that officials from the country's joint chiefs had met to discuss "how to advance cooperation between the two departments and improve crisis management and communication", without providing further details.

- Attitude changing -


AFP/File / NICOLAS ASFOURI
North Korean soldiers stand on the banks of the Yalu river near Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong

There are signs that Beijing's views on North Korea have changed significantly since President Donald Trump took office last January.

The subject of how to plan for the North's collapse has become increasingly common in Chinese media.

"China will go all out to promote talks, but will also make plans in case the worst-case scenario occurs," an editorial in the state-owned Global Times said last Thursday ahead of meetings in Beijing between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Such remarks show "that the Chinese government's attitude towards adjusting North Korea policy has relaxed," said Deng Yuwen, a Chinese political commentator.

Deng was suspended from his job at a state-owned publication in 2013 for writing an editorial in the Financial Times urging Beijing to rethink its loyalty to the North Korean regime.

But he still finds it hard to believe that Washington and Beijing could be engaged in direct talks on a post-Kim Jong-Un future, a conversation that would enrage Pyongyang.

"Even if China was considering this possibility, they still couldn't discuss it with the US because China still has to consider the North's attitude."

Oriana Skylar Mastro, a scholar at Georgetown University and the American Enterprise Institute, said "coordination with the US is basically non-existent" and the talks are likely "not yet at the operational level".

"That may never happen unless there is a conflict."

 

[almost ready]

On twitter now, by Drudge and several others. Missile from Houthis headed straight for Saudi Palace intercepted.

Expect this to have video soon. Putting it here as an incident time stamp, as much as anything. Will come back with more (link, video whatever)

edited to add link to Strategic Sentinal on Twitter with link (which video is already being called out as from last March in the comments)

http://twitter.com/StratSentinel/status/943136317336113152

#UPDATE: Missile was reportedly aimed at Royal Palace in Riyadh. Missile confirmed as being intercepted

 

[Housecarl]

Blast heard in saudi capital, smoke seen
Started by danielbooný, Today 06:27 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?529029-Blast-heard-in-saudi-capital-smoke-seen

The Four Horsemen - 12/18 to Christmas Day
Started by Ragnaroký, Yesterday 02:35 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?529002-The-Four-Horsemen-12-18-to-Christmas-Day

Obama allowed HEZBOLLAH to traffic cocaine to the US as a favor to IRAN
Started by Buick Electraý, 12-17-2017 08:26 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-traffic-cocaine-to-the-US-as-a-favor-to-IRAN

Trump to Putin: US was glad to save many lives in Russia by helping foil major terrorist attack
Started by Millwrightý, Yesterday 04:51 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...Russia-by-helping-foil-major-terrorist-attack

Russian military increases on Kamchatka
Started by Ben Sundayý, 12-17-2017 05:15 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?528957-Russian-military-increases-on-Kamchatka

Gaza rocket smashes into Israeli town near border, damaging home
Started by Zagdidý, 12-17-2017 03:05 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...s-into-Israeli-town-near-border-damaging-home

The Four Horsemen - 12/11 to 12/18
Started by Ragnaroký, 12-11-2017 03:11 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?528667-The-Four-Horsemen-12-11-to-12-18

ISIS CLAIMS CREDIT FOR PAKISTAN CHURCH ATTACK 8 DEAD 12-17-2017
Started by Doomer Dougý, 12-17-2017 11:42 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-FOR-PAKISTAN-CHURCH-ATTACK-8-DEAD-12-17-2017

Gunmen attack Christian church in Pakistan, killing at least one person 17/12/2017
Started by Marthanoirý, 12-17-2017 04:04 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...kistan-killing-at-least-one-person-17-12-2017

Israel Threatens to Return Lebanon to the 'Stone Age'
Started by Zagdidý, 12-17-2017 10:35 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-Threatens-to-Return-Lebanon-to-the-Stone-Age

==========

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/new-nuclear-pessimism/

A new nuclear pessimism

19 Dec 2017 | Rod Lyon

The ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific recently published a small volume of essays titled Nuclear Asia. With North Korea’s nuclear exploits featuring prominently in the headlines over the past 12 months, the issue is certainly topical. And in the 17 essays that make up this volume, the ANU’s editors have tried to ensure both a broad range of subject matter and a diversity of opinion among their authors. But there’s an undeniable bleakness to many of the contributions. Indeed, it’s a publication intended to worry the reader. It explores a number of unsettling trends. And, as Michael Wesley makes plain in his opening chapter, the ‘main purpose [of the current volume] is to try to bring the dangers of these trends much more public and policy attention’.

True, there are nuclear dangers in Asia. Still, they need to be set alongside the strengths of the Asian nuclear order—the overall story isn’t one of unrelieved gloom. Since the late 1990s, the concept of a ‘second nuclear age’ has helped to paint a depressing picture of Asia’s nuclear dynamics. It portrays—in sharp contrast to the first nuclear age—a world of multiple nuclear players: some impoverished or inclined to ready use of weapons of mass destruction, few with robust conventional forces or reliable systems for command and control, and many driven by nationalism rather than game-theory logic. The second nuclear age, forecast Paul Bracken, would see ‘fire in the East’.

That might yet prove right. But so far, it hasn’t. If we’re going to get an accurate picture of the Asian nuclear order, we need to balance that portrayal with an understanding that other forces are also at play. Asia’s nuclear order turns heavily upon the notion of voluntary self-restraint. That restraint can be seen in the general slowness of Asian nuclear programs, their small arsenal sizes, the relative absence of nuclear arms races, the recessed character of most Asian deterrence settings, and the fact that most Asian nuclear-weapon states are still developing countries with economic priorities.

The essay by Brendan Taylor and David Envall—on why the arms-race model doesn’t fit well in today’s Asian nuclear dynamics—is a sober and nicely constructed piece that does pay appropriate regard to the stabilising features of the regional order. Their chapter hews rigorously to a close definition of ‘arms racing’ and is measured and thoughtful—a useful reminder that even though voluntary self-restraint’s under pressure, a valuable residue remains.

So why is the overall mood so much darker? North Korea is obviously a major part of the answer. Kim Jong-un hasn’t looked self-restrained in 2017. The pace and scope of Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs have been deeply troubling. But President Trump has also contributed to the darkening of the nuclear mood, and the statements of some senior figures in his administration have done little to dampen concerns.

The overall effect has been to make more immediate a set of worries which had previously been seen primarily through a more abstract, academic lens. For example, several of Nuclear Asia’s authors take exception to the fact that advanced conventional weapons are increasingly intruding upon the nuclear realm, with destabilising consequences. The claim’s true, of course. Ballistic missile defences, long-range precision-guided munitions, and offensive cyber operations are making strategic nuclear balances complex and escalation ladders complicated. But if we’re ever going to see nuclear disarmament, conventional weapons have to take over those key deterrence and defensive missions now performed by nuclear ones. Keeping the realms separate—and how do we do that exactly?—isn’t going to work.

Besides, accepting the inevitable intrusion of advanced conventional weapons into the nuclear realm is part of the cure for the affliction that Tanya Ogilvie-White, in her essay, labels ‘nuclear fatalism’. Nuclear fatalism, she argues, reflects a mood of growing resignation that nuclear weapons are going to be around indefinitely, that disarmament diplomacy is feckless and nuclear war inevitable. If that’s the definition, I’m not sure I know many nuclear fatalists. Sure, nuclear weapons won’t disappear anytime soon. But arms control remains a valuable exercise—not least in helping to ensure that nuclear war isn’t inevitable.

Despite the new nuclear pessimism, we shouldn’t succumb to a counsel of despair. The Asian nuclear order is stronger than it looks. The complexities of greater interaction between the nuclear and conventional domains have an upside—they’re the inevitable product of a strategic environment in which nuclear weapons have a smaller role. And the human race is not doomed to inevitable nuclear extermination. But—and this is a big but—neither have strategic competition and war disappeared from the world. The struggle for geopolitical pre-eminence and first-mover advantage continues. Strategy is not dead.

It’s been a challenging year for those keen to promote the broader nuclear ordering project. Let’s hope 2018 brings better tidings.

Author
Rod Lyon is a senior fellow at ASPI. Image courtesy of Pixabay user cocoparisienne.

Related Posts:

Wrestling a nuclear-armed 800-pound gorilla
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/wrestling-a-nuclear-armed-800-pound-gorilla/

Understanding the North Korea threat
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/understanding-the-north-korea-threat/

Nuclear norms and the UN ban treaty
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/nuclear-norms-and-the-un-ban-treaty/

Back to the future with mini-nukes?
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/back-to-the-future-with-mini-nukes/

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/killed-u-n-experts-congo-confidential-prosecutors-file-071439471.html

Who killed U.N. experts in Congo? Confidential prosecutor's file offers clues

By Aaron Ross, Reuters • December 19, 2017

DAKAR (Reuters) - U.N. investigators Zaida Catalan and Michael Sharp were on familiar ground when they sat down with local leaders in central Congo in March to discuss a widening seven-month-old conflict in the area.

The pair – experienced members of a panel monitoring the sanctions regime in Democratic Republic of Congo for the U.N. Security Council – were meeting members of the Kamuina Nsapu, a local clan, on the sidelines of peace talks with the government in the city of Kananga.

Among other things, they discussed plans to visit the village of Bunkonde, the site of violent clashes, the next day.

The two U.N. workers left Kananga on the morning of March 12. On March 27, their bodies were found in a shallow grave. Catalan had been decapitated.

Congolese government officials maintained for months to reporters that no state agents were involved in the killings and that they did not know that the two experts were in the region, let alone heading to Bunkonde.

But at least one person who helped organise the trip, Jose Tshibuabua, worked for Congo's intelligence service, the Agence Nationale de Renseignements (ANR), Reuters and Radio France Internationale (RFI) have learned.

The trial of a dozen suspected Kamuina Nsapu militia members started in June but was suspended in October pending the arrival in Congo of four U.N. experts last month to assist with additional investigations.

Phone logs in a confidential prosecutor's case file compiled for the trial and seen by Reuters and RFI, who jointly reported this story, show that Tshibuabua had frequent contact with a local ANR boss, Luc Albert Tanga Sakrine, before and after the two experts were killed.

Two security sources said that case file was given to a U.N. board of inquiry that concluded militiamen were likely responsible for the killings of Sharp, 34, an American, and Catalan, 36, a Swede. Tshibuabua and his ties to the ANR were not mentioned in the board's confidential report to the U.N. Security Council or in the trial, however.

The board said it was unable to establish a motive for state actors to have been involved. But the two experts were conducting investigations in an area where the United Nations has accused Congo's military of using excessive force against militia and civilians and of digging mass graves.

The top ANR official in Congo, Kalev Mutond, told Reuters and RFI that Tshibuabua was working as a "volunteer informant" for the agency at the time of the meeting, but did not inform ANR officials about his contacts with the two experts.

Since the trial of the militiamen was suspended, Tshibuabua was arrested and charged last week with the murder of Catalan and Sharp and participation in an insurrection, his lawyer, Tresor Kabangu, told Reuters. Kabangu said his client denies the charges and has not worked for the ANR in more than a year.

Government spokesman Lambert Mende now says that authorities have not excluded the possibility that state agents were involved.

"If there is a state agent who was involved, he will be pursued and judged," Mende said on Dec. 1 after Reuters and RFI laid out the contents of the case file and phone logs.

The U.N. board's chairman, Greg Starr, declined to say if he had seen the prosecutor's file or was aware of its contents.

In an emailed answer to questions, Starr said only that the board's report had a tight deadline and did not include some sensitive information, which was turned over to authorities in the United States and Sweden, because of concerns about leaks.

"A thorough criminal investigation into a heinous act like this, under these circumstances, could not be accomplished in only three months," he said.

Congo's top military prosecutor, Joseph Ponde, declined to respond to questions about why Tshibuabua's involvement was not raised in the trial, except to say the proceedings are public.

Tanga Sakrine declined to comment. President Joseph Kabila's deputy chief of staff, Jean-Pierre Kambila, also declined to comment, citing the ongoing trial.

A TENSE RELATIONSHIP
Ties between the United Nations and Congo can be tense, with authorities often accusing the world body of meddling in their sovereign affairs. The U.N. peacekeeping mission, deployed in 1999 to monitor a cease-fire in a long-running war in the east, is the world's largest with about 18,000 uniformed personnel.

Catalan and Sharp were investigating a new conflict in the central Kasai region. In August 2016, Kamuina Nsapu militiamen in the area rose up to demand government forces withdraw after the local chief, Jean-Pierre Mpandi, was killed.

Up to 5,000 people died in the violence.

On the weekend of March 11, a delegation of about 40 Kamuina Nsapu representatives was in Kananga to talk peace. Members of this delegation met Sharp and Catalan at the Woodland Hotel.

In audio recovered from Catalan's computer by the United Nations, Tshibuabua describes himself as a Mpandi family member and helps translate from the local Tshiluba language into French for the group's leader, Francois Muamba. He does not say he works for the ANR.

According to a Reuters translation, Tshibuabua and another person assured Sharp and Catalan in French that their safety would be guaranteed in Bunkonde, even as Muamba warned not to make promises they couldn't keep.

"We don't know the situation over there," Muamba said at one point. He said he did not have control of the local militia in Bunkonde. "Let's talk about (the situation) near us."

Tshibuabua continued to assure the U.N. investigators that the militiamen "will not do anything", adding later: "Here in Kasai, we really guarantee your passage."
Reuters was unable to reach Muamba for comment.

The prosecutor's case file includes logs from about 20 phone numbers over various periods from early March to mid-June.

One is from the phone of Tshibuabua and another is from the phone of his cousin Betu Tshintela, who accompanied Catalan and Sharp to Bunkonde as an interpreter. Tshintela claimed in a 2012 job application to the government of Kasai-Occidental province - seen by Reuters and RFI - to have also worked for the ANR.

The government says Tshintela is dead but the United Nations cannot confirm that. Mutond, the top ANR official, could not confirm if Tshintela had worked for the ANR but said he was looking into it.

The phone logs show Tshibuabua was repeatedly in contact with Tanga Sakrine, the provincial ANR chief, around this time. Between March 10 and 12, the two exchanged at least 17 text messages, including five in the afternoon of March 11, shortly after the meeting at the Woodland Hotel, and five around 9 p.m. on March 12, hours after Sharp and Catalan were killed.

Mutond said he asked Tshibuabua three times in an interrogation in the capital Kinshasa whether he informed ANR officials about his contacts with the investigators, and Tshibuabua said no each time.

Reuters and RFI could not independently confirm this.

"I looked Jose Tshibuabua in the eyes and asked him because I myself wanted to have a clean conscience," Mutond said.

FINAL CALL
Sharp spent three years working in eastern Congo for a Mennonite peace-building organisation, trying to persuade rebels to lay down their weapons, before joining the sanctions panel in 2015 as its armed groups expert.

Catalan, the panel's humanitarian expert, worked for the European Union's police mission in Congo in 2011-12 and also held posts with the EU in Palestine and Afghanistan.

The phone logs show the last call from Catalan's phone was to her sister, Elizabeth Morseby, in Sweden at 4:49 p.m.

Morseby told Reuters and RFI she could hear only some male voices in the background and Catalan breathing deeply before the call disconnected. No-one answered when she called back.

Some relatives and rights activists told Reuters and RFI they raised concerns early about possible government involvement because state forces were heavily implicated in rights abuses in Kasai that attracted international attention in the past.

The families and Washington want the United Nations to launch an independent investigation.

A former colleague on the U.N. panel also cast doubt on a video that the government said showed the two being executed by Kamuina Nsapu members. He said the video raised more questions than it answered, for example, why at least one of the alleged assassins gave orders in Lingala, the language of western Congo and the army, rather than the local Tshiluba.

Mende, the government spokesman, countered that many Congolese speak at least some Lingala.

The U.N. board noted theories of "alternate causes of the incident" but cited a lack of motive for government to be involved. It also said Sharp and Catalan failed to heed warnings from U.N. security officials that travel outside Kananga was dangerous.

The FBI has opened an investigation, according to Sharp's parents, who have met with bureau investigators. The FBI declined to comment.

The Swedish prosecutor's office is investigating Catalan's killing but complained in a statement last month that Congolese officials are not cooperating.

Mende said it was up to Swedish authorities to provide information to the Congolese court hearing the case, not the other way around.

(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...raine-worst-since-february-osce-idUSKBN1EE05A

#World News
December 19, 2017 / 5:30 PM / Updated 8 hours ago

Fighting in eastern Ukraine worst since February: OSCE

Alessandra Prentice, Oleksandr Klymenko
4 Min Read

KIEV/NOVOLUHANSKE, Ukraine (Reuters) - Fighting in eastern Ukraine has escalated to the worst level in months, officials monitoring the conflict said on Tuesday, after the shelling of a frontline village wounded eight civilians and destroyed or damaged dozens of homes.

A Russia-backed insurgency erupted in 2014 and the bloodshed has continued despite a ceasefire deal that was meant to end a conflict in which more than 10,000 people have been killed, with casualties reported on a near-daily basis.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which monitors the implementation of the peace agreement, said it had recorded 16,000 ceasefire violations between Dec. 11 and Dec. 17, a 35 percent increase on the week before.

“We note with concern a sharp deterioration in the security situation with ceasefire violations reaching levels not recorded since February this year,” chief monitor Ertugrul Apakan said in a statement.

In February, a surge of violence around the government-held industrial town of Avdiivka cut off power and water to thousands of civilians on the front line.

Apakan said the latest escalation reflected an established trend “in which a recommitment to the ceasefire by the sides was followed by a steady increase in the level of violence, culminating in fierce fighting”.

Apakan’s comments followed warnings from aid agencies over the humanitarian situation in the eastern Donbass region, particularly given Monday’s attack on the government-controlled village of Novoluhanske.

The United Nations’ OCHA humanitarian arm said on Twitter heavy shelling near Novoluhanske was affecting 2,000 residents.

People are fleeing the area in blizzard conditions, it said.

Eight civilians were wounded and more than 50 buildings were damaged in the shelling, which also temporarily cut power supplies, the regional Kiev-controlled Donetsk administration said.

A Reuters witness saw residents picking their way through the rubble of destroyed homes and surveying fire-blackened buildings.

The U.S. State Department said the humanitarian situation was “dire” because of the shelling, which it blamed on Russian-led forces firing Grad multiple-launch rockets.

The Ukrainian military on Tuesday accused pro-Russian separatists of deliberately firing more than 40 times from multiple-launch rocket systems at Novoluhanske.

Meanwhile, the rebel command said attacks from the Ukrainian side had almost doubled in the past 24 hours, according to separatist news website DAN.

Rebels deny attacking Novoluhanske and say the Ukrainian military fired at the village to justify their attacks on separatist-held civilian areas, according to DAN.

The U.S. State Department also voiced concern about fighting around the Donetsk water filtration station, which has a system of pipes that carry chlorine gas.

“If those were to go off in this area, which is close to where people live, it could be potentially devastating,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a briefing.

She said civilian water workers were trapped in the station’s bomb shelter and could not get out because of fighting.

In an effort to end the deadlock, the international community, including the United States, has in recent months been advocating for the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in the Donbass.

Both Kiev and Moscow backed the idea but disagree on whether the troops should be positioned on the rebel-controlled part of the Ukraine-Russia border, so no decision was made.

Russia denies accusations from Ukraine and NATO that it supports the rebels with troops and weapons.

Reporting by Alessandra Prentice and Oleksandr Klymenko; additional reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Alison Williams and Grant McCool

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...achers-and-holding-100-children-idUSKBN1ED2L0

#World News
December 19, 2017 / 11:52 AM / Updated 14 hours ago

Kenya police raid Islamic school, arresting teachers and holding 100 children

Joseph Akwiri
3 Min Read

MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - Kenyan police raided an Islamic school on Tuesday, arresting two teachers and taking around 100 children into protective custody in what police described as a counter-terrorism operation involving foreign law-enforcement agencies.

Police described the school in Likoni, south of the port city of Mombasa, as a center for indoctrinating young men and children with militant ideology.

“The place has been monitored for a long time,” said a police source who asked not to be named. The police spokesman was unavailable for comment.

Kenya is mostly Christian but has a large Islamic population. It is relatively free from religious tension, although it has suffered repeated deadly attacks from Somali Islamist extremists.

A local Muslim leader confirmed the operation but said there was no evidence of any illegal activity.

“A group of local and foreign police officers raided the madrasa (Islamic school) where the pupils were sleeping and took them with their teachers,” Sheikh Hassan Omar, a senior official in the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK), an umbrella body for Kenya’s religious leaders, told journalists in Mombasa.

“There are nearly 100 pupils and four madrasa teachers who have been arrested and detained at police headquarters and nobody is telling us what crime they have committed.”

It was not immediately clear why the police and CIPK gave different totals for the number of teachers arrested.

Omar said the officers asked for identification documents, including birth certificates from the children, and their teachers before they took them.

Another police source told Reuters the operation was sparked by intelligence information that both foreign and local children were being indoctrinated in the school.

“We have been assisted by some friends from outside with information and monitoring of this madrasa. That is normal with such cross-border criminal issues,” said another senior police officer, who also asked not to be named. He did say which foreign country was involved in the raid.

“They (the children) will be released one by one after we interrogate and clear them,” he said.

Editing by Katharine Houreld and Larry King

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-north-sinai-military-statement-idUSKBN1ED28Q

#World News
December 19, 2017 / 8:51 AM / Updated 16 hours ago

Egypt air base attack kills officer in North Sinai: military statement

Reuters Staff
2 Min Read

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian military officer was killed and two other people were wounded in a shell attack on a military airport near the town of Arish in the North Sinai region on Tuesday, the army spokesman said in a statement on Facebook.

It said the attack took place during a visit of Egypt’s interior and defense ministers to the area.

A security source said neither minister had been hurt during the attack.

Those wounded were an officer and a soldier, a second security source said.

The statement also said a helicopter had been damaged during the attack, and that security forces had “dealt with the source of fire”, without elaborating.

The Egyptian military is battling a years-long Islamist insurgency in North Sinai that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen.

Attacks claimed by Islamic State’s Sinai branch have expanded to include civilian targets in the past year.

The group is widely believed to have carried out an attack on a mosque last month, the deadliest in Egypt’s modern history, which killed more than 300 people according to state media. However Islamic State did not claim that attack.

Reporting by Mostafa Hashem and Nadine Awadalla, writing by John Davison; Editing by Gareth Jones

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.realcleardefense.com/ar...ans_for_xi_to_abandon_north_korea_112810.html

What it Means for Xi to Abandon North Korea

By Don Tse & Larry Ong
December 20, 2017

During their November meeting in Beijing, United States President Donald Trump and General Secretary Xi Jinping stated their commitment to denuclearizing North Korea. Since then, the Trump administration has been sending signals that the U.S. is serious about going into North Korea if the Kim Jong Un regime forces the situation: U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said in an interview that the probability of war with North Korea is “increasing every day.” American F-22 and F-35 fighter jets participated in a large-scale joint military exercise with South Korea. And in a speech to a Washington think-tank, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the U.S. has been talking to China about securing North Korea’s nuclear weapons in the event of regime collapse.

Meanwhile, China appears to be preparing for possible American action against North Korea. An army group from a Chinese theater command in charge of defending the Sino-North Korean boundary held a training exercise in late November. A week later, news emerged that China is constructing refugee camps across the border from North Korea. “We’ve done our best. We can neither persuade North Korea nor America,” read a Dec. 2 editorial by state mouthpiece Global Times. China can only stick to its “bottom line” and “make preparations for the worst,” the editorial continued.

China’s apparent willingness to abandon North Korea makes sense from a realist standpoint. Given North Korea’s proximity to China, Kim’s nuclear brinkmanship represents a serious threat to the stability of the Xi administration. The Chinese and North Korean leaders also have a nonexistent relationship—Xi has never met Kim, and “just does not like that man at all,” according to former U.S. ambassador to China Max Baucus. Furthermore, China’s improved ties with South Korea suggests that Xi may no longer require North Korea as a buffer state. Finally, with the Trump administration planning trade action against China, Xi may find it pragmatic to cooperate with America and hopefully secure a delay in the timing of U.S. economic sanctions.

From the ideological perspective, however, giving up North Korea may prove calamitous for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Mao Zedong once described the relationship between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) with the Chinese idiom “if the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold” (chun wang chi han). Some observers say that Mao is referring to the close ties between the two communist regimes, while others say that Mao is pointing to North Korea’s importance to China as a geographical security buffer. But Mao might actually be making bleak, existential point—the “lips and teeth” idiom is derived from a historical event during the Spring and Autumn period (771 to 476 BCE) where a powerful warring state conquers two smaller states after breaking up their alliance. In other words, Mao likely sees the PRC and the DPRK as allies with a shared fate—neither communist regime can survive if the other falls (according to CCP propaganda). Xi Jinping must be keenly aware of the nuance in Mao’s remarks and the greater implications of regime collapse in North Korea, particularly with Trump’s anti-communist stance.

Going by Xi’s attitude towards North Korea thus far, he will almost certainly accept U.S. military intervention if Kim Jong Un crosses the red line. American military action will almost certainly lead to the collapse of the Kim regime. And if the Kim dynasty falls, then Mao’s use of the “lips and teeth” idiom may prove prophetic.

Abandoning North Korea?
Under Xi Jinping, the relationship between China and North Korea deteriorated to its lowest point since the founding of the PRC and the DPRK after the Second World War. Since taking office in 2012, Xi has yet to meet Kim Jong Un and thinks very poorly of him. U.S. officials say that Xi “openly disparaged” Kim during his meetings with Trump in Florida this April. Few Chinese officials have traveled to North Korea on diplomatic business as compared to during the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao years. Meanwhile, Kim has purged his leadership of pro-China officials, including his uncle and brother. He also appears to be openly challenging the Xi leadership by scheduling North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear testing near sensitive periods for Xi. For instance, Pyongyang’s fifth nuclear test took place days after the APEC summit in Hangzhou, while its sixth test came hours before Xi addressed a BRICS summit in Fujian.

Part of the reason for the hostilities between Xi and Kim is an ongoing factional struggle at the highest levels of the CCP. The Kim family is close to the influential faction of Jiang Zemin, the former CCP leader, and Xi’s chief rival. Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un, met Jiang in Beijing in 2004, while Jiang’s top lieutenants like Zhou Yongkang, Zhang Dejiang, and Liu Yunshan visited Pyongyang to review military parades and partake in other high-profile activities. The Jiang faction also appears to be helping the Kims with their nuclear ambition: In 2016, the Chinese authorities arrested Ma Xiaohong, a Chinese businesswoman with ties to the Jiang faction, for supplying North Korea with materials needed for its nuclear program.

Jiang faction backing could explain why Kim Jong Un is adopting a recalcitrant attitude towards Xi Jinping and timing nuclear tests to embarrass him. On the flipside, Kim’s alliance with Jiang also explains why Xi has been sending signals that he will abandon North Korea if it goes too far. In May, the Politburo decided that North Korea’s unwillingness to heed China means that it is a “political burden” that the PRC must “relieve” itself off, according to a Hong Kong political magazine. And in September, a Global Times editorial noted that China won’t come to North Korea’s aid if Pyongyang starts a conflict with America; under a 1961 alliance treaty, China is obligated to help North Korea if it is attacked. The latest signs of China-North Korea estrangement include new Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Yang informing a Japanese politician that China and North Korea are in an antagonistic relationship, and Xi Jinping and South Korean leader Moon Jae-in pledging to improve China-South Korea bilateral ties during their Dec. 14 summit in Beijing.

Working with America
There are two reasons why China will cooperate, and not clash, with America if the North Korean issue heats up and the Trump administration uses the military option.

First, Xi and Trump appear to already be in sync on reining in North Korea since their Florida meeting in April. Shorting after the meeting, Trump dispatched several aircraft carriers and other warships near the Korean Peninsula, a move which China did not object. Then in September, China supported very stringent United Nations sanctions against North Korea while the People’s Bank of China ordered Chinese banks to cease doing business with North Korea. The following month, Xi and Trump affirmed their intention to denuclearize North Korea. Both leaders have clearly developed mutual trust and understanding and can be expected to cooperate further if there are new developments in the Korean situation. Xi’s stance on North Korea and his cordial relationship with Trump differs sharply from previous Chinese leaders.

Second, present realities mean that China has no real alternative but to work with the U.S. in the event of another Korean conflict.

During the 1950 Korean War, the Mao administration had near total control over the Chinese population’s access to information about America’s military strength and the situation at the Korean front. This meant that the public was largely kept in the dark about the fight against the “American imperialists,” particularly when Chinese casualties started mounting and the tide of the battle turned against the communist alliance. The Xi leadership also strictly controls information streams, but the impossibility of completely censoring modern communication networks like the internet means that the CCP cannot hide developments at the battlefront. News of a disastrous engagement with America in a hypothetical skirmish could demoralize Chinese citizens and destabilize CCP rule.

Parents in today’s China would be hugely adverse to the idea of war on the Korean Peninsula. Most parents have only one child due to the CCP’s draconian population control policy. The prospect of losing their only child in a fight over foreign territory may inspire popular discontent against the CCP. Children may also be the reason why Chinese officials could vote down conflict with the U.S. since many officials have children pursuing higher education in America.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is currently in no state to take on the U.S. military in a conventional battle. While Xi is “Americanizing” the PLA and it does possess some unconventional weaponry and tactics that could neutralize the U.S.’s technological advantage, the PLA is currently in the midst of a comprehensive military reform and is not yet ready to wage war. Xi decision to downsize the Central Military Commission at the recent 19th Party Congress could also be influenced by his being unclear about the loyalties of his senior military leadership.

Finally, Xi has an incentive to work with America if it means buying him as much time as possible to prepare the economy for when the Trump administration’s trade action against China takes effect.

What’s next for China
Xi Jinping made it clear during his recent meeting with South Korea’s Moon Jae-in that he is opposed to war on the Korean Peninsula and that he prefers the North Korean situation be resolved through “dialogue and consultation.” The Trump administration, however, won’t hold talks with North Korea if Pyongyang continues with its nuclear brinkmanship. Conflict, should it erupt, will likely stem from American intervention to North Korean provocation. And while Tillerson recently said that America does not seek regime change and will “retreat back to the south of the 38th parallel” if it crosses the line, nobody can fully determine or foresee what will happen on the Korean Peninsula in the event of a clash. History offers a clue: Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan regime and Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime collapsed after U.S. military intervention.

From one perspective, the end of the Kim regime is a win for Xi. Without a belligerent North Korea, the Jiang faction will lose a major provocateur and collaborator against the Xi leadership. Xi can then take bolder action against the remaining Jiang faction elites without being distracted or undermined by a nuclear North Korea. With the Jiang faction gone, Xi can more easily implement economic and political reforms in China.

On the flipside, the fall of the North Korean regime presents the Trump administration with an opportunity to pressure Xi to abandon communism. In his first speech at the United Nations, Trump openly condemned the “discredited ideologies” of socialism and communism. “America stands with every person living under a brutal regime,” he added. With countries increasingly voicing their concern and opposition to communist China’s subversion—an Australian lawmaker recently resigned over his links with the CCP—a U.S. campaign for China to end communism or face international pressure could prove popular and put Xi under tremendous pressure.

It is noteworthy that while Trump is anti-communist, his administration believes that Xi’s rule will turn out to be positive. “We think that President Xi will come out of [the 19th Party Congress] in a dominant position with incredible capacity to do good around the world,” Central Intelligence Agency director Mike Pompeo said in an interview. What Xi may do in the future is unclear, but the CCP will almost certainly face an existential crisis in the wake of the Kim dynasty’s collapse.

Don Tse is the CEO and co-founder of SinoInsider Consulting LLC, a consulting and research company based in New York City.

Larry Ong is a senior analyst with SinoInsider Consulting LLC.

Comments 3

Jerome Barry • an hour ago
Consider: Under Deng, the CCP ceased to be philosophically Communist or even Socialist, and chose to become Mercantilist. Jiang and Hu stand as merely reactionary ciphers between Deng and Xi. Xi stands as the affirmed rejection of Mao's Communism by the CCP, which has devolved into a Court supporting the re-established imperial power of the Forbidden City. This is not an insightful description, so much as an acknowledgement that Western leftists fondest hopes have been dashed on the rocks of reality.


•
Reply
•
Share ›

−

Jav • 2 hours ago
Linking China's improved relations with South Korea with the possibility of it abandoning North Korea is flimsy at best. China's relation with South Korea is strictly economic. And so long as South Korea maintains its security alliance with the US it is unlikely that China will trade a certain factor ( North Korea) for an uncertain one.
There is also the issue of border security to factor in the prospect of a new Korean War, while a less then satisfying outcome would destabilise the CCP. The possibility of South Korea moving in and the US setting up shop right across the Yalu river is just as troubling. Nothing the US say or promise will reassure China on this, because the US has a track record of breaking it's promises. A record that is only solidified with the release of the NATO documents.
The prospect of a Korean war is just as unplatable to the average American as it is to the average Chinese. But that does not mean that the majority would not be swept along with the flow if it does happen. War occurs more accidentally that intentionally.
One thing is for sure, if China does goes to war it would not be to save Kim's skin.

•
Reply
•
Share ›

Duane • 2 hours ago
Interesting perspective. First I've read of the NK-Jiang-Xi conflict. I do think it's plausible that whatever value NK held once upon a time as a "buffer" with ROK is long past its sell-by date, and the aggravation and instability wrought by Kim's regime has to be an embarrassment to Xi's regime given that it is trying to sell itself as a rival Super Power and benevolent world leader.
I also think it is virtually impossible to believe that Xi and the PRC would go to war with the USA in order to protect Kim. Though many seem to believe that, without any evidence other than Mao defended Kim's granddaddy back in 1950 when the PRC was in an extremely different place than it is today, and they still lost the war, settling for an armistice at the 38th parallel.
It is still a big question mark as to what Trump will actually do. His history says he talks big and carries a tiny little stick - the diametric opposite of the TR formulation. He has some warhawks in his administration, mainly McMasters ... but clearly Mattis is not on board with warring as a first choice. I don't see Mattis losing out to McMasters.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/arc...-more-complicated-between-pakistan-and-india/

Crisis Management Gets More Complicated between Pakistan and India

by Michael Krepon | December 20, 2017 | No Comments

Quotes of the week:
“The ability to win a local war cannot be translated into the ability to fight it safely and therefore cannot provide a firm foundation for either deterrence or coercion.”
— Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (1989)

“The problem…is not that one’s own nuclear weapons might prove insufficiently frightening to the adversary to deter adventurism, but that through a thoughtlessly chosen offensive nuclear posture, one might… provoke the adversary to make a preemptive attack.”

— Barry Posen, Inadvertent Escalation: Conventional War and Nuclear Risks (1991)
The dynamics of crisis management between India and Pakistan have changed in significant ways over the past several years, which makes the mid-January publication of the Stimson Center’s new book edited by Sameer Lalwani and Hannah Haegeland, Investigating Crises: South Asia’s Lessons, Evolving Dynamics, and Trajectories, extremely timely.

At least two important new developments have to be thought through carefully. Ties between the United States and India as well as between China and Pakistan are greatly improved. What does this mean for crisis management?

And what do “surgical strikes” and “befitting responses” imply for crisis management? In past crises, Indian leaders decided not to respond to attacks by groups with links to Pakistan’s military and intelligence services – even on a large scale. Will Indian political and military restraint hold in the event of small-scale attacks, let alone major ones? Or is Indian retaliation of some sort now likely, which could prompt Pakistan’s military responses, thereby placing the “ball” back in India’s court? The next severe crises between Pakistan and India could play out in multiple sequences. Crisis management on the subcontinent is moving from checkers to chess.

The first line of defense to prevent a crisis on the subcontinent still resides with Pakistan’s military leadership. When the revisionist state does not wish to change the status quo on the subcontinent, crisis managers can take a holiday.

Since 1990, risk-taking Pakistani military leaders have chosen to challenge the status quo on four occasions, most dramatically during the Kargil War in 1999, and then by attacks by violent extremist groups on the Indian Parliament in 2001 and the 2008 rampage in Mumbai. These crises hurt Pakistan more than India. So why did they happen?

Perhaps one reason is that Pakistani decision makers managed to convince themselves that these crises would be manageable and their outcomes beneficial. A second possible reason why, flowing from the first, is that Pakistani decision makers assumed they could advance claims of plausible deniability in pursuit of an advantageous outcome, at least to a useful degree. A third possibility is that Pakistan’s leaders were not fully aware or cognizant of the dangers in plans hatched by their military and intelligence services.

The third of these explanations is not deemed credible outside of Pakistan – and surely not after the linkages revealed before and during the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The only way at present for Pakistan to credibly claim that it is not in collusion with anti-India extremist groups would be to withdraw the hospitality shown to them, sever links with cadres that cross the Kashmir divide, and shut down groups that recruit, indoctrinate, and train cadres for suicide missions. This hasn’t happened, and seems unlikely to happen as long as Pakistan’s military and intelligence services maintain their longstanding cost/benefit calculus.

But what now? How might China’s new economic lifeline to Pakistan affect Rawalpindi’s calculations? What might the benefits of Beijing’s investments – and the ability of Pakistan’s leaders to secure fair terms of investment – mean for the avoidance of another serious crisis?

I am cautiously optimistic. Institutions protect their interests but are capable of learning. Big explosions triggered by anti-India jihadi groups have been terrible news for Pakistan’s economic prospects and international standing. How deeply have Pakistan’s military and intelligence services internalized these lessons? We don’t know. What we do know is that there has not been another massive crisis-triggering event since 2008. China’s self-interested investments in Pakistan should reinforce a crisis prevention mentality among the guardians.

The second line of defense against uncontrolled escalation has always been in New Delhi’s possession. During the Kargil War, New Delhi exercised great care in pushing back Pakistan’s Northern Light Infantry troops without utilizing air power on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control dividing the old Princely State.

After the 2001-2002 “Twin Peaks” crisis triggered by the Parliament building attack, Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government nearly went to war. Ultimately Vajpayee decided that it was not worth sacrificing India’s economic growth to the uncertainties of war and escalation control. After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of the Congress Party-led coalition government, quickly came to a similar conclusion.

Will the second line of defense against escalation hold in the future? Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to publicize “surgical strikes” in September 2016 — after a series of lesser provocations culminating in an attack at an Indian military post at Uri in which 19 Indian soldiers died — certainly suggests otherwise. Modi has willingly placed himself on the hook to counter creeping adventurism by anti-India jihadist groups.

As a practical matter, this suggests that the second and subsequent lines of defense against escalation are now permeable. If Modi pursues remedies like those after the Uri attack, U.S. crisis managers are unlikely to argue for complete forbearance. And if Modi uses force in response to provocation, Rawalpindi would face its own imperatives to respond in “befitting” ways.

We are headed toward unfamiliar terrain here – perhaps sufficiently foreboding to override my cautious optimism. U.S. crisis managers have never possessed the power to prevent big explosions or escalatory responses. These decisions have always been in the hands of Pakistani military and Indian civilian decision makers. However, Washington and other capitals still retain influence to prevent a crisis from escalating to limited conventional warfare, uncontrolled escalation, and the abyss.

This terrain is very complicated. The halcyon days of U.S. crisis management, relying heavily on New Delhi’s restraint after severe provocations, seem to be behind us. The goal posts are shifting toward the demonstrative use of force. Even so, leaders in New Delhi and Rawalpindi have powerful reasons to contain the choreography of violence to manageable levels.

Another key question at this juncture is whether U.S. leadership in crisis management on the subcontinent remains firmly in place or if it is becoming a remnant of the past? Is the Trump administration ready and willing to play an active crisis management role? Does it have the personnel and ambition to do so? Or might it decide to adopt a more passive stance, even with such high stakes on the table?

What does an “America First” national security posture mean in the context of two nuclear-armed states that are in crisis? Is it time for India and Pakistan to deal directly with each other to reduce nuclear dangers, both during and after a crisis? Or are these dangers, along with U.S. strategic and regional interests, too great for Washington to refrain from active crisis management? The single line offered in the Trump administration’s new national security strategy — “The prospect for an Indo-Pakistani military conflict that could lead to a nuclear exchange remains a key concern requiring consistent diplomatic attention” — doesn’t shed much light on this subject.

 

[Housecarl]

Possible vehicular attack - Melbourne, Australia
Started by auxman‎, Yesterday 10:29 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...le-vehicular-attack-Melbourne-Australia/page2

==========

How is this #winning??? In Unexpected Move, Trump Enacts Obama-era Law Opening US Arms Sales To Ukraine
Started by SageRock‎, Yesterday 09:50 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...bama-era-Law-Opening-US-Arms-Sales-To-Ukraine

What might civil war be like?
Started by Troke‎, Today 07:11 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?529134-What-might-civil-war-be-like

==========

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.longwarjournal.org/arch...llahs-narco-terror-nexus-in-latin-america.php

Podcast: Hezbollah’s Narco-Terror Nexus in Latin America

By The LWJ Editors | December 19th, 2017 | editor@gmail.com |

The under-researched and under-reported partnership between Middle East terror groups and Latin American drug cartels is fast developing. Iranian-backed Hezbollah is leveraging its growing global network to launder huge amounts of money, traffic weapons, and engage in a long list of illicit activities that are increasingly overlapping with the work of Latin American narcos.

In Episode 3 of FDD’s podcast Foreign Podicy, host Cliff May talks with Latin America expert, Emanuele Ottolenghi, to discuss how Hezbollah is using its global terror network to connect the gap between Latin American drug cartels and the international markets of the Far East, the Middle East and Europe. Ottolenghi investigates and breaks down the illicit tactics used by the groups, and what the US should be doing to combat the convergence of narco-trafficking and jihadi-terrorism.

https://soundcloud.com/defenddemocracy/the-latin-american-narco-terrorism-nexus

Foreign Podicy is a podcast project by FDD focused on the most consequential foreign policy and national security issues facing the United States today. You can learn more about the show on their web site. You can also subscribe to the show via iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher.

 

[danielboon]

Putin's Syria envoy: US forces should leave Syria

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5060295,00.htmlASTANA – Russian President Vladimir Putin's envoy for Syria said on Thursday that there was no reason for US forces to remain in Syria and that Washington's stated reasons for maintaining a military presence there were groundless.



Alexander Lavrentiev was speaking in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, ahead of a new round of Russian-backed Syrian peace talks.

 

[danielboon]

this should kick it up a notch

Conflict News‏
@Conflicts
8m8 minutes ago
More
BREAKING: UN General Assembly votes 128-9 to declare US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital `null and void' - @AP

 

[danielboon]

Reuters Top News‏Verified account
@Reuters
58s58 seconds ago
More
U.S. says under attack at U.N. over Jerusalem, repeats aid threat

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.military.com/daily-news...round-ops-over-120-airstrikes-yemen-year.html

US Acknowledges Ground Ops, Over 120 Airstrikes in Yemen This Year

Military.com
20 Dec 2017
By Richard Sisk

The U.S. for the first time has acknowledged conducting "multiple ground operations" along with airstrikes at a stepped-up rate of more than two per week in Yemen this year against offshoots of al-Qaida and ISIS.

In a statement Wednesday, U.S. Central Command did not give any details on when and where the ground attacks were carried out in Yemen, but said that more than 120 airstrikes in 2017 have targeted al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and the relatively new group known as ISIS-Yemen, of ISIS-Y.

The more than five-fold increase in airstrikes in Yemen this year, compared to the 21 in 2016, was in line with President Donald Trump's directives to pursue terror groups aggressively, said Lt. Col. Earl Brown, a CentCom spokesman.

Trump "has made it abundantly clear" that AQAP and ISIS-Y sites and facilitators should be targeted, Brown said.

"AQAP is one of the terrorist groups most committed to, and capable of, conducting attacks in America, as assessed by the intelligence and defense communities, while intelligence estimates indicate that ISIS-Y has doubled in size over the past year," CentCom said.

CentCom noted a series of 10 airstrikes in November in the Yemeni governates al-Bayda and Marib, including a strike on Mujahid al-Adani, an AQAP leader, who was killed Nov. 20 in al-Bayda.

Al-Adani, also known as Mohammad Shukri, was a senior leader responsible for planning and conducting terrorist attacks against Yemeni, coalition and tribal security forces, CentCom said.

On Oct. 16, a series of airstrikes against two ISIS-Y training camps in al-Bayda killed more than 50 ISIS-Y combatants, disrupting the organization's attempts to recruit and train new fighters, CentCom said.

"The removal of key facilitators in this region will interrupt AQAP's freedom of movement and likely force the group into a reactionary posture, limiting their ability to challenge Yemeni Security Forces and partnered advances," Lt. Col. Brown said.

"U.S. forces also expanded counterterrorism operations in October to encompass both AQAP and ISIS. This parallel targeting effort is required to prevent ISIS-Y from filling the vacuum left by a diminished AQAP footprint or influence in the region," he said.

The CentCom statement did not go beyond stating that "multiple ground operations" took place in Yemen following a well-known raid in January shortly after Trump took office.

In the first offensive operation personally approved by Trump, a Jan. 28 raid in Yemen resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL, the wounding of several other service members and the destruction of an MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

Trump and White House officials at the time stressed that valuable intelligence was recovered in the raid on an AQAP stronghold.

In that raid, Special Warfare Operator William "Ryan" Owens, 36, of Peoria, Illinois, became the first combat death of Trump's presidency.

The stepped-up airstrikes against AQAP and ISIS-Y were occurring during the civil war in Yemen pitting tribal Houthi rebels backed by Iran against the remnants of government forces backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The U.S. has been providing intelligence and aerial refueling to the Saudis. Last week, United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley used the charred remnants of a ballistic missile with Iranian markings as a backdrop to call on Iran to stop supporting the Houthis.

The U.S. has also called on the Saudis to ease a blockade to allow food and humanitarian aid to enter Yemen, where UN officials have warned of a spreading famine.

The White House said Wednesday that Trump had called Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on the shootdown Tuesday of a ballistic missile allegedly fired by the Houthis and aimed at the king's al-Yamamah palace.

The attack was "enabled by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps," the White House said in a statement.

"The leaders discussed the importance of engaging the United Nations to hold Iran accountable for its repeated violations of international law and agreed on the importance of re-invigorating a political process to end the war in Yemen," the statement said.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

 

[night driver]

Conflict News‏
@Conflicts
8m8 minutes ago
More
BREAKING: UN General Assembly votes 128-9 to declare US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital `null and void' - @AP

Reuters Top News‏Verified account
@Reuters
58s58 seconds ago
More
U.S. says under attack at U.N. over Jerusalem, repeats aid threat

this is akin to some city demanding that the weather bureau take back their forecast for rain in the hurricane bearing down on them...

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ian-civilians-fighting-in-syria-idUSKBN1EF0RI

#WORLD NEWS DECEMBER 21, 2017 / 12:09 AM / UPDATED 16 HOURS AGO

Dying for a paycheck: the Russian civilians fighting in Syria

Maria Tsvetkova
7 MIN READ

ORENBURG, Russia (Reuters) - When Vladimir Kabunin signed up as a private military contractor, he saw a chance to make a wage much higher than any he could earn in his provincial Russian hometown.

The grave of Russian private military contractor Valery Dzyuba, who was said to be killed in Syria, is pictured at a cemetery near the city of Orenburg, in the southern Urals, Russia September 18, 2017. REUTERS/Maria Tsvetkova
Happy to be able to support his wife and son, the ex-police officer left Orenburg, nearly 1,500 km (940 miles) southeast of Moscow, and joined pro-Russian rebels fighting government forces in east Ukraine, a family friend and a relative told Reuters.

When fighting subsided there, he went to Syria to serve as a field medic with troops under Russian command, they said.

Kabunin was killed in Syria this year and his body was sent home, they said. But the government does not recognize he was in Syria, so he was buried without military honors and nothing on his grave shows he was killed in action.

Kabunin, who was 38, was one of hundreds of military contractors secretly recruited by Moscow for combat operations in Syria since Russia’s military operation began there in 2015, according to people familiar with the deployment.

According to a Reuters tally based on accounts from people who knew the deceased and local officials, at least 28 private contractors have been killed in Syria this year, and Russian consular documents seen by Reuters suggest the figure may be much higher.

The government denies recruiting and sending private military contractors to fight abroad. The defense ministry did not respond when asked about Kabunin’s case and the role of contractors in Syria, and has said previous Reuters reports on the contractors are an attempt to discredit Russia’s mission to restore peace to Syria.

But over two years, Reuters has spoken to dozens of family members, colleagues and friends of military contractors who have been killed in Syria.

Those familiar with the deployment say the contractors are under government command and have helped turn the tide of war in favor of Russia’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while hiding the scale of its military involvement and losses.

The fact that Kabunin and others like him are willing to sign up for such missions shows the Kremlin can draw on a large reserve of fighters who, as long as they are well remunerated, are willing to risk dying in the shadows.

WELL-TRODDEN PATH
Kabunin followed a path taken by many contractors: service in the military or security forces, a return to civilian life, a struggle to make a living, then a chance to make decent money fighting secretly for Russia, in Ukraine and then Syria.

Family members of Russian contractors say that in Syria they were paid up to $6,500 per month, which exceeds Russia’s average monthly wage more than 12 times.

“If you quit law enforcement bodies, you have only one way (choice) - to become a mercenary,” Vasily Karkan, a classmate of Kabunin at school, told Reuters.

Kabunin was shy as a child until he started kickboxing classes, Karkan recalled. The sport became a life-long hobby.

Kabunin obtained a degree in medicine and also studied law, but followed in the family footsteps by joining the police.

In 2010, he found a new job in a prison, where his wife also worked in a tuberculosis hospital. Kabunin’s role was to work with prisoners to obtain information and gather intelligence on planned escape attempts or potential unrest, but he left that job in 2012.

A spokesman for Orenburg prisons service said he had left of his own volition. A family friend spoke of job cuts and said he looked for a new job for about two years.

The grave of Russian private military contractor Valery Dzyuba, who was said to be killed in Syria, is pictured at a cemetery near the city of Orenburg, in the southern Urals, Russia September 18, 2017. REUTERS/Maria Tsvetkova
“There is no place to work,” the family friend said. “You can’t earn more than 10,000 rubles ($170)(a month) here.”

When fighting broke out in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Kabunin saw a job opportunity.

Moscow denies deploying active service troops in Ukraine or providing direct military help to the separatists. But Kabunin signed up with Dmitry Utkin, the leader of a group of Russian ex-servicemen fighting there who uses the nom de guerre “Vagner”, and, drawing on his medical degree, served as a military medic, his relative said.

COMBAT DEATH
When Utkin and his comrades deployed to Syria in support of Russia’s regular forces, Kabunin went with them, people familiar with the deployment said. As of April 2016, he was a field medic in a medical evacuation unit under Utkin’s command in Syria, according to an official in a Ukrainian law enforcement agency.

The agency says it has obtained the personnel records of 1,700 Russian contractors deployed in Syria, most of whom were earlier in Ukraine.

Slideshow (2 Images)
Kabunin left home for his last trip to Syria on Jan. 4 and was put in command of a medical company, but was wounded on Jan. 31 and died on Feb. 7 in Homs province, a relative said.

The relative knew this from former police colleagues of Kabunin, some of whom also served in Syria, and from his death certificate, which was handed to his wife Natalya. It was not clear how she was informed and who gave her the death certificate. She declined to speak to Reuters.

Relatives of other killed contractors say the news has come via friends or acquaintances, or by phone from people who say they represent a private company.

Kabunin was buried next to other family members’ graves in Orenburg, his portrait displayed on a cross showing a man with a shaved head in civilian clothes.

His wife received a compensation payment, according to the relative, who gave no further details.

According to accounts from relatives of other contractors killed in Syria, the employer typically pays out 3 million rubles ($51,227) in compensation to the next of kin when a contractor is killed.

Relatives of another dead contractor told Reuters that, in his case, the money was handed over to his widow in cash in a hotel in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don.

“MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”

On a visit to Syria on Dec. 11, President Vladimir Putin declared mission accomplished for the Syrian operation and paid tribute to Russian servicemen who have been killed there.

There was no mention of the contractors’ losses. The government is under no obligation to disclose the deaths of non-regular forces fighting under its command and Russian military losses in Syria are a state secret.

Kabunin’s death did not dissuade his friend Valery Dzyuba, also a former police officer and kickboxer from Orenburg, from heading to Syria to fight as a military contractor.

Dzyuba’s family received a phone call from an unidentified man saying he had died on Aug. 20 but not specifying the circumstances. Dzyuba was killed in Syria, according to one of his classmates, Kabunin’s relative and an official in the village where Dzyuba was buried.

Editing by Timothy Heritage

 

[danielboon]

AFP news agency
‏
Verified account

@AFP
2h2 hours ago
More
#BREAKING Putin slams 'aggressive' US defence strategy

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ed-them-after-signing-ceasefire-idUSKBN1EG1O2

#World News December 22, 2017 / 6:37 AM / Updated 2 hours ago

South Sudan rebels say army attacked them after signing ceasefire

Reuters Staff
2 Min Read

JUBA (Reuters) - A South Sudanese rebel group on Friday accused government troops of attacking their base only a day after the parties signed a ceasefire in a four-year war that has already killed tens of thousands of people.

The ceasefire, that would allow humanitarian groups access to civilians caught in the fighting, formally comes into force on Sunday morning.

On Friday afternoon, a spokesman for the SPLA-IO rebel group said army forces had attacked a rebel base in Deim Jalab, in the western part of the country. Lam Paul Gabriel said two rebels and five government troops were killed in the fighting.

The army spokesman in the capital, Juba, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The war that began in late 2013 in the world’s youngest nation has forced a third of the population to flee their homes. The United Nations describes the violence as ethnic cleansing.

Earlier this year, pockets of the country plunged briefly into famine.

The latest round of talks in the Ethiopian capital, convened by the East African bloc IGAD, brought the warring sides back to the negotiating table after a 2015 peace deal collapsed last year during heavy fighting in Juba.

After the new agreement was signed on Thursday, South Sudan’s Information Minister Michael Makuei Leuth told journalists: ”The cessation of hostilities will be effective 72 hours from now. As of now, we will send messages to all the commands in the field to abide by this cessation of hostilities.

“From now onwards, there will be no more fighting,” he added. “Just talks.”

Reporting by Denis Dumo; editing by Ralph Boulton; Writing by Maggie Fick

 

[danielboon]

Catalan separatists win election in rebuke to Spain and EU
https://t.co/j3mtBUAFiK?amp=1

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...itaries-deploy-to-syrian-border-idUSKBN1EG298

#WORLD NEWS DECEMBER 22, 2017 / 12:37 PM / UPDATED 7 HOURS AGO

Iraqi Shi'ite paramilitaries deploy to Syrian border

Ahmed Aboulenein
3 MIN READ

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi‘ite paramilitary groups have deployed to the frontier to back up border guard forces who came under fire from within Syria over the past three days, one of their commanders said on Friday.

There was no immediate word on who opened fire from Syrian territory, but forces arrayed against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria expect the group will resort to guerrilla warfare after losing its urban bastions earlier this year.

“After several Iraqi border guard positions came under several attacks by missiles, and backup from security forces was late, the 13th brigade of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) was deployed and targeted the origins of the launch,” PMF commander for west Anbar, Qassem Mesleh, said in a statement.

“Operations command and the infantry brigade are now present on the Iraqi-Syrian border in border guard positions to repel any attack or movement by the enemy,” Mesleh said.

“This area is not within the PMF’s remit but it is our duty to back up all security forces.”

The PMF is an umbrella grouping of mostly Iran-backed and trained Shi‘ite militias that formally report to Iraq’s prime minister but are separate from the military and police.

Sunni Muslims and Kurds have called on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to disarm the PMF, which they say are responsible for widespread abuses against their communities.

An Iraqi military spokesman confirmed the deployment. Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told Reuters it was temporary, however, and “very normal” because it was the PMF’s duty to back up government forces.

The PMF were officially made part of the Iraqi security establishment by law and formally answer to Abadi in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Abadi has said the state should have a monopoly on the legitimate use of arms.

Iraqi forces on Dec. 9 recaptured the last swathes of territory still under Islamic State control along the frontier with Syria and secured the western desert.

It marked the end of the war against the militants, three years after they overran about a third of Iraq’s territory.

Rasool, the military spokesman, denied backup to the border guards had been late.

“The primary responsibility for the borders lies with the border guards and the army, however,” said Rasool.

He said Iraqi forces coordinate with both the Syrian army, which is backed by Russia, Iran and Iran-backed Shi‘ite militias, and the U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias known as the Syrian Democratic Forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

He said parts of Syria - including many areas on the border with Iraq - were still under Islamic State control.

Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by William Maclean

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/1.830548

Saudi Arabia Threatens to Go Nuclear: If Iran Allowed to Enrich Uranium, So Should We

Saudi prince and ex-intelligence chief Turki al-Faisal says Riyadh shouln't forfeit its 'sovereign' right to develop atomic energy ahead of upcoming talks with U.S.

Reuters Dec 21, 2017 9:36 PM

• Saudi Arabia to extract uranium for 'self-sufficient' nuclear program
• U.S. firms courting Saudi Arabia to build nuclear reactors; Rick Perry to visit Riyadh
• Iran may be defying call to halt ballistic missile development, UN chief says

Saudi Arabia should not forfeit its "sovereign" right to one day enrich uranium under its planned civilian nuclear program, especially as world powers have allowed Iran to do so, a senior Saudi royal told Reuters.

Former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal's comments reinforced Riyadh's stance on what is likely to be a sensitive issue in talks between Saudi Arabia and the United States on an agreement to help the kingdom develop atomic energy.*

Riyadh aims to start talks with the United States within weeks on a civilian nuclear cooperation pact, which is essential if U.S. firms are to bid in a multi-billion-dollar tender next year for building Saudi Arabia's first two nuclear reactors.*

The reactors will be part of a wider program to produce electricity from atomic energy so that the kingdom can export more crude oil.*
Riyadh says it wants nuclear technology only for peaceful uses but has left unclear whether it also wants to enrich uranium to produce nuclear fuel, a process which can also be used in the production of atomic weapons.*

U.S. companies can usually transfer nuclear technology to another country only if the United States has signed an agreement with that country ruling out domestic uranium enrichment and the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel -- steps that can have military uses.*

"It's a sovereign issue. If you look at the agreement between the P5+1 with Iran specifically it allows Iran to enrich," Prince Turki, who now holds no government office but remains influential, said in an interview on Tuesday in Riyadh.*

He was referring to the six countries -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- that reached a deal with Tehran in 2015, under which economic sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for the Islamic Republic curbing its nuclear energy program.*

"The world community that supports the nuclear deal between the P5+1 and Iran told Iran you can enrich although the NPT (global non-proliferation treaty) tells us all we can enrich," Prince Turki, a senior royal family member and a former ambassador to Washington, said.*

"So the kingdom from that point of view will have the same right as the other members of the NPT, including Iran."*

'Self-sufficiency'*

The dual technology has been at the heart of Western and regional concerns over the nuclear work of Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional rival. These worries helped lead to the 2015 deal, which allows Iran to enrich uranium to around the normal level needed for commercial power production.*

Atomic reactors need uranium enriched to around five percent purity but the same technology can also be used to enrich the heavy metal to higher, weapons-grade levels.*

Saudi Arabia plans to build 17.6 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear capacity by 2032, the equivalent of around 16 reactors.*

Riyadh has previously said it wants to tap its own uranium resources for "self-sufficiency" in producing nuclear fuel.

Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih told Reuters on Wednesday that said these large resources were being explored, were promising and that Saudi Arabia would like to localise the industry in the long-term.

*Prince Turki said the only way to stop uranium enrichment would be by establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, a longstanding idea which has been backed by the UN's nuclear assembly.*

"This is not going to happen overnight. You have to set a time scale for negotiations to include regional discussions between the prospective members of the zone on issues not just of nuclear, but of achieving peace in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine," he said.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...72eac1e73b6_story.html?utm_term=.1b6a9cee2f96

Russian submarines are prowling around vital undersea cables. It’s making NATO nervous.

By Michael Birnbaum December 22 at 6:56 PM
BRUSSELS — Russian submarines have dramatically stepped up activity around undersea data cables in the North Atlantic, part of a more aggressive naval posture that has driven NATO to revive a Cold War-era command, according to senior military officials.

The apparent Russian focus on the cables, which provide Internet and other communications connections to North America and Europe, could give the Kremlin the power to sever or tap into vital data lines, the officials said. Russian submarine activity has increased to levels unseen since the Cold War, they said, sparking hunts in recent months for the elusive watercraft.

“We are now seeing Russian underwater activity in the vicinity of undersea cables that I don’t believe we have ever seen,” said U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Andrew Lennon, the commander of NATO’s submarine forces. “Russia is clearly taking an interest in NATO and NATO nations’ undersea infrastructure.”

NATO has responded with plans to reestablish a command post, shuttered after the Cold War, to help secure the North Atlantic. NATO allies are also rushing to boost anti-submarine warfare capabilities and to develop advanced submarine-detecting planes.

Britain’s top military commander also warned that Russia could imperil the cables that form the backbone of the modern global economy. The privately owned lines, laid along the some of the same corridors as the first transatlantic telegraph wire in 1858, carry nearly all of the communications on the Internet, facilitating trillions of dollars of daily trade. If severed, they could snarl the Web. If tapped, they could give Russia a valuable picture of the tide of the world’s Internet traffic.

“It’s a pattern of activity, and it’s a vulnerability,” said British Air Chief Marshal Stuart Peach, in an interview.

“Can you imagine a scenario where those cables are cut or disrupted, which would immediately and potentially catastrophically affect both our economy and other ways of living if they were disrupted?” Peach said in a speech in London this month.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment about the cables.

The Russian sea activity comes as the Kremlin has also pressed against NATO in the air and on land. Russian jets routinely clip NATO airspace in the Baltics, and troops drilled near NATO territory in September.

[Russia held a big military exercise. Here’s why the U.S. is paying attention.]

Russia has moved to modernize its once-decrepit Soviet-era fleet of submarines, bringing online or overhauling 13 craft since 2014. That pace, coming after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula set off a new era of confrontation with the West, has spurred NATO efforts to counter them. Russia has about 60 full-size submarines, while the United States has 66.

Among Russia’s capabilities, Lennon said, are deep-sea research vessels, including an old converted ballistic submarine that carries smaller submarines.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/i...00v2RUSSIASUB.jpg?uuid=u3-yYOd8EeeSeucurB5ztg

“They can do oceanographic research, underwater intelligence gathering,” he said. “And what we have observed is an increased activity of that in the vicinity of undersea cables. We know that these auxiliary submarines are designed to work on the ocean floor, and they’re transported by the mother ship, and we believe they may be equipped to manipulate objects on the ocean floor.”

That capability could give Russia the ability to sever the cables or tap into them. The insulated fiber-optic cables are fragile, and ships have damaged them accidentally by dragging their anchors along the seabed. That damage happens near the shore, where it is relatively easy to fix, not in the deeper Atlantic, where the cost of mischief could be far greater.

Lennon declined to say whether NATO believes Russia has actually touched the cables. Russian military leaders have acknowledged that the Kremlin is active undersea at levels not seen since the end of the Cold War, when Russia was forced to curtail its submarine program in the face of economic turmoil and disorganization.

“Last year we reached the same level as before the post-Soviet period, in terms of running hours,” said Adm. Vladimir Korolev, the commander of the Russian Navy, earlier this year. “This is more than 3,000 days at sea for the Russian submarine fleet. This is an excellent sign.”

The activity has forced a revival of Western sub-hunting skills that lay largely dormant since the end of the Cold War. Lennon said NATO allies have long practiced submarine-hunting. But until the last few years, there were few practical needs for close tracking, military officials said.

In recent months, the U.S. Navy has flown sorties in the areas where Russia is known to operate its submarines, according to aircraft trackers that use publicly available transponder data. On Thursday, for example, one of the planes shot off from Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, headed eastward into the Mediterranean. It flew the same mission a day earlier.

The trackers have captured at least 10 missions carried out by U.S. submarine-tracking planes this month, excluding trips when the planes simply appeared to be in transit from one base to another. November was even busier, with at least 17 missions captured by the trackers.

NATO does not comment on specific submarine-tracking flights and declined to release data, citing the classified nature of the missions. But NATO officials say that their submarine-tracking activities have significantly increased in the region.

Submarines are particularly potent war-fighting craft because they can generally only be heard, not seen, underwater. They can serve as a retaliatory strike force in case of nuclear war, threaten military resupply efforts and expand the range of conventional firepower available for use in lower-level conflicts.

The vessels are a good fit for the Kremlin’s strategy of making do with less than its rivals, analysts say: Russia’s foes need vast resources to track a single undersea craft, making the submarines’ cost-to-mischief ratio attractive. Even as Russia remains a vastly weaker military force than NATO, the Kremlin has been able to pack an outsize punch in its confrontation with the West through the seizure of Crimea, support for the Syrian regime and, according to U.S. intelligence, its attempts to influence the U.S. election.

“You go off and you try to add expense for anything that we’re doing, or you put things at risk that are of value to us, and submarines give them the capability to do it,” a senior NATO official said of the Russian approach, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence assessments.

Russian military planners can say, “I can build fewer of them, I can have better quality, and I can put at risk and challenge and make it difficult for NATO,” the official said.

[Latvia’s cellphones stopped working. Russia’s war games may be to blame.]

Still, some analysts say the threat to cables may be overblown.

“Arguably, the Russians wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they couldn’t threaten underwater cables. Certainly, NATO allies would not be doing theirs if they were unable to counter that,” said Adam Thomson, a former British ambassador to NATO.

Russian military planners have publicized their repeated use of submarine-launched Kalibr cruise missiles during their incursion into Syria, which began in fall 2015. (In Syria, the missiles have not always hit their targets, according to U.S. intelligence officials, undermining somewhat the Russian claims of potency.)

NATO’s hunts — which have stretched across the Baltic, Mediterranean and Atlantic — have mobilized submarine-tracking frigates, sonar-equipped P8 Poseidon planes and helicopters, and attack submarines that have combed the seas.

“The Russians are operating all over the Atlantic,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “They are also operating closer to our shores.”

Russia’s enhanced submarine powers give urgency to NATO’s new efforts to ensure that it can get forces to the battlefront if there is a conflict, Stoltenberg said. In addition to the new Atlantic-focused command, the alliance also plans to create another command dedicated to enabling military forces to travel quickly across Europe.

NATO defense ministers approved the creation of the commands at a November meeting. Further details are expected in February. The plans are still being negotiated, but they currently include the North Atlantic command being embedded inside the U.S. Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, which would transform into a broader NATO joint force command if there was a conflict, a NATO diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that have not been finalized.

“Credible deterrence is linked to credible reinforcement capabilities,” Stoltenberg said. “We’re a transatlantic alliance. You need to be able to cross the Atlantic.”

Read more

Putin thanks Trump for CIA intel that foiled a planned terrorist attack in Russia

A Putin-Assad embrace launches Russia’s new peace bid for Syria

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

942 Comments

 

[Doomer Doug]

Sigh! The US and NATO have moved eastward and completely encircled Russia. When Russia responds to that by upgrading its sub fleet and then using that to mess with NATO heads, we get this article. Yep, as soon as I saw the "Intelligence agencies say Russia "tried to influence US elections," I realized we were dealing with globalist, neo con, NATO warmongering.

Even as Russia remains a vastly weaker military force than NATO, the Kremlin has been able to pack an outsize punch in its confrontation with the West through the seizure of Crimea, support for the Syrian regime and, according to U.S. intelligence, its attempts to influence the U.S. election.